Three
by RZZMG
Summary: Draco Malfoy wants out of Voldemort's Death Eater army. But in exchange for giving Hermione Granger his wealth of info. on the enemy, he has a price: her in his bed, as his wife. FIC CHALLENGE. DARK story. Post DH-A/U. Romance/Hot shagging-DM x HG.
1. Chapter 1

_**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **_

_**This story is CEYLON's FIC CHALLENGE. Here were her requirements:**_

_Like always this challenge is about Draco and Hermione's love story but during the time of misery under the Dark Lord's reign._

_1. The setting is a very dark post-Voldemort world wherein he won the war.  
2. Make it realistic but I want a darker Draco that is a serious Death Eater.  
3. This story must have an adventure; both Hermione and Draco must have a purpose and mission to fulfill.  
4. Aside from using Theodore, Marcus, Daphne and C. Warrington you must also include Luna, Katie, Seamus and Alicia as supporting characters.  
5. Lucius and Narcissa, who are very loyal to the Dark Lord, hate Hermione. (I love them in your other stories but it has to be done.)  
6. Hermione must hate the Weasley family specifically Ron and Ginny. The reason is up to you. They must have small or non-speaking roles.  
7. Lots of passionate sex. Consensual or non-consensual.  
8. Snape is alive and has an important role in this story.  
9. There must be lots and lots of angst like cruelty to war prisoners, discrimination to slaves and execution of traitors etc.  
10. A happy ending. (Please do not kill Draco and Hermione.)_

**OKAY, here's part one (this will be a multi-part fic)…**

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**Disclaimer: **I do not own "Harry Potter" or any of its characters, nor do I profit in any way from the use of said characters and situations in this writing.

**Story Details:** Weaves one major plot bunny through the middle of "Half-Blood Prince" novel, but doesn't change any of the facts in that story as JKR wrote it. Novel canon up to the Final Battle (May 2, 1998). After that, it's an Alternate Universe entirely (Harry loses the war, Voldemort wins).

**Timeline:** 2001 (will not give an end date, as that's a spoiler)

**Characters (alphabetical order, by last name): **Katie Bell, Dobby the House-Elf, Seamus Finnegan, Marcus Flint, Hermione Granger, Astoria Greengrass, Daphne Greengrass, Neville Longbottom, Luna Lovegood, Remus Lupin, Draco Malfoy, Lucius Malfoy, Narcissa Malfoy, Theodore Nott, Severus Snape, Alicia Spinnet, Lord Voldemort, Cris Warrington, Ginny Weasley, Ron Weasley, Blaise Zabini

**Summary: **Harry Potter was dead. Voldemort won the war. In the aftermath, Britain has been devastated, and the surviving society divvied-up by the Death Eaters and Snatcher loyalists into tiered levels of usefulness and social attractiveness. Draco Malfoy is counted amongst Voldemort's followers, but considered near the bottom of the rung because of his past failures. Over the years, he's watched a mass genocide take place - participated in it against his will, and he's grown tired of war. More than anything, he wishes for one more chance to see _her_, the woman who's haunted him since he was sixteen - Hermione Granger, the third in the Golden Trio, the woman he gave his virginity to and who he's always secretly loved. Where is she? Has she been captured or killed? After three years, there's been no sign of his witch... And then, one afternoon, she appears before him like magic, and the path before Draco becomes clear: he'll join her cause, give her any information she wants to defeating the Dark Lord... but that loyalty will come at a price - her in his bed, as his wife. Will Granger take the deal, and if so, where will that lead Draco and his small group of friend-dissenters?

**Rating: MA+/NC-17 **(_very_ explicit sexual situations, including: graphic heterosexual sex, loss of virginity, masturbation, rape, homosexual unrequited love; profanity; alcohol consumption; graphic violence, including: murder, torture, fist-fighting, wand dueling, use of nasty curses)._** THIS IS A VERY DARK FIC WITH EXTREME ADULT THEMES!**_

**Images to go along with this fic (characters, outfits, places mentioned in the story - remove all spaces to load the URL properly): http:/ / s905 . photobucket . com / albums / ac260 / RZZMG / Three**

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_**THREE**_

**By: RZZMG**

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**CHAPTER ONE**

**September 19th, 2001**

The air always smelled like sweet charred meat on Wednesdays and Sundays. Those were the days of the week the corpses of the prisoners who had died in the Death Eater internment camps all across England, Ireland and Scotland, or those who had died in battle – on either side - were burned. It was to prevent pestilence. After all, millions of Muggles and thousands of wizards and witches made quite a stink when they rotted, and they putrefied the water table when buried en masse. Burning them seemed the only way to guarantee life for those who could still breathe, even if they subsisted on little better than poisonous fumes themselves.

The camps were set up in most major cities with populations over 100,000, and they were presided over by Snatcher-Death Eater teams of six (three of each working in conjunction together). The camps were Unplottable, and magically warded to prevent escape of any kind. Prisoners who were too sick, too elderly, the mentally deficient, or those who required continual medical attention – the Firsts, or First Tier individuals - were killed outright. Those who weren't too sick to work, but who were too physically deformed or suffered from a long-term illness that was slowly killing them (like consumption, cancer or AIDS), were kept to do the manual labor of loading the dead bodies and carting them away. The Seconds – those with no or little magical skill who could still work, or those too unattractive to sell - were sent into the cities to provide labor for factories or into the country on supervised work farms. The Thirds – the good looking, choice individuals, or those with special magical talents that were in demand - were auctioned off to the highest bidders on the London Block for whatever purposes the new owner saw fit – usually as sex slaves, sometimes house servants, occasionally tutors. The system had been in place for over three years – almost from the beginning of Voldemort's reign of terror across Europe - and by now, it was perfected. A well-oiled machine that required only fresh bodies to replace broken cogs and clean out the bilge.

Draco hated visiting _any_ of the camps, especially on burning days, but he especially loathed the camp in Scotland that rested over the former site of his one-time secondary home. What remained of Hogwarts was nothing more than a hollowed-out hole deep in the earth. Every brick, stone, piece of glass, or chunk of wood had been pulverized until it was nothing but dust. Voldemort had personally seen to this destruction after killing Potter and setting things in motion, and it had taken him arduous months of curse-breaking all of the layers of enchantments to complete it. But he had done it, and now as Draco looked out over the empty, hollowed-out abyss, he felt sick to his guts for the loss. His childhood place of safety – for a few years, at least – was now the Abaddon pit, the realm of the dead.

As a 'loyalist' in the middle rungs of the chain, it was his duty to bring in new slaves that the Snatchers had captured, and to see that these bodies were properly processed - i.e. branded and turned over to the camp's duty officers (for Hogwarts, that was his old housemate, Marcus Flint, and his lieutenant Cris Warrington). It was a duty Draco felt was unfairly assigned to him. But Tom Riddle had never forgiven Draco's father for failing him so many times, nor for the son failing to actually be the one to _Avada_ the Headmaster (Snape had done it for him, because Draco could not), and now Draco was relegated to the same level of trust in the hierarchy as that fucking animal, Fenrir Greyback. It was a god's damned travesty for a human being - much less a pureblooded wizard - to be lumped with the likes of a monster, much less a cannibal.

As the new prisoners proceeded silently in line for inspection, Draco examined his nails, noting the dirt under them again. He hated when his hands got messy. He could never seem to get them clean nowadays, not of mud or of blood.

Mudblood.

The thought of _her_ again cut his very soul up once more and he shook his head physically, focusing on the line of dull, filthy, exhausted individuals walking past, trying to count them. He slipped each time he got to three, as that was _her_ number. Potter was one, Weasel was two, and Granger was three. The Golden Trio. It frustrated him that he couldn't count higher every time he looked into a face, because every time he got to three, he started looking for her specifically, hoping she would miraculously appear before him in the lines.

Not as if he could do much if she did. If Hermione Granger ever showed up in a line, she'd become Voldemort's personal property immediately. Unlike the Weasel, she had no death sentence over her head; it was capture at all costs. The Dark Lord wanted her alive and unharmed. Draco suspected he knew why, too, the fucking hypocrite.

He sighed, counting again, getting stuck continually on three.

He'd tried for the last three years, in fact, to put Granger from his mind. She was surely dead by now. He'd seen no mention of her on any of the rolls, hadn't heard a peep about her whereabouts or ultimate fate since the day Potter had been killed. He looked for her, of course, although he'd never have admitted it to anyone – not even her, had he found her. Some obsessions weren't meant to be shared aloud.

Draco glanced up into the stormy clouds far above, pushing the misting rain off his long, platinum bangs, seeing only grey. Everything was always grey now, everywhere he went.

Today, he knew, would have been _her_ 22nd birthday.

X~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~X

**October 26th, 2001**

Draco watched Flint order Katie Bell's death. He remembered the shiela from his Sixth Year. Her curiosity had nearly killed her by proxy when she'd opened the package with the cursed necklace that he'd arranged to have sent to Dumbledore. That hadn't felt right to him, that she'd been an unwitting victim of his treachery.

But then, everyone was an unwitting victim all the time, weren't they?

He watched her bloodied form, her face purpled and pulped by frequent beatings, being marched over to the edge of the pit. She'd been impregnated by Warrington, that sick fuck, when he'd repeatedly raped her, and now she was going to pay for his sins. As if any of this were her fault. As if she could help having a failing heart valve, which made it possible for her to be in this place to begin with.

The Snatchers and Death Eaters walking behind her tormented the young woman every step of the way, teasing, pretending, waving their wands at her face and laughing as she sobbed and begged them to just get it over with. Finally, they'd given her what she'd asked for – but not by a quick, nearly painless magical means. No, Warrington stabbed her in the belly with a butcher's knife, kicked her over the edge of the hole and waved bye-bye down at her as she'd screamed the several hundred feet to her death.

Sickened, Draco turned away, his fists clenched at his sides, and he'd hurried to a spot behind one of the hastily erected bunkers and vomited his guts out.

This war had _never_ been about blood purity or restoring wizards to their rightful place openly in the world, as he'd once been indoctrinated to believe. No, this war was nothing more than the excuse for the truly demented to wield power at their whims, and to give them the right to carve out destinies – other people's, their own. Dumbledore had understood that from the get-go. Draco suspected Potter had even comprehended that fact there at his end. And poor, pathetic Katie Bell - she definitely knew it in the moment she'd been murdered.

None of this felt right to him at all. It never had.

X~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~X

**November 7th, 2001**

The Manor House was cold and quiet, like the mausoleum it had become over the years. Death Eaters did not come here anymore to report to Voldemort, thankfully. The madman had taken his fight to Russia, to bring Durmstrang to its knees. Beauxbatons may have fallen easily just last Christmas, but the Dark Wizards of Durmstrang were more than a match when united, so the Dark Lord had gone personally to see to either their willing submission or to their complete destruction.

Draco considered what this meant long-term.

If his Master won in the land of the Cossacks, next year it would be the most logical course of action to attack Africa next. The Dark Continent had only a single school in Luxor, but the curriculum was completely different from the European schools, as the students in Egypt focused mainly on obscure Divination techniques, Alchemy, and Dark Arts necromatic rituals pertaining to the quest for human immortality; all were impractical magicks for battle situations. The knowledge of ancient and powerful Egyptian curse magicks had been lost millenia ago. It was, therefore, most likely that Luxor would fall without much of a fight. And with the rest of the African nations mired down in ethnic and tribal self-imposed segregation, the continent would take little effort to subdue.

After Africa, the Dark Lord could easily hop the ocean to South America. There was only one wizarding school on the continent - in Buenos Aires. Once it fell, there would be little resistance.

Australia, Oceania and Southeast Asia would be next. Their wizarding numbers were much smaller than other areas of the world, so in all probability, Syndey could be taken in less than a week, and Papeete, San Fernando, and Bangkok in one day a piece, and that would effectively sweep the area.

The powerful Asian institutions - Beijing, Kyoto, Seoul, Andhra Pradesh and Bishkek - would take a lot of the fight out of the Death Eater army, though. Aside from sheer numbers on their side, the different Asian cultures had spells that western wizards had never even heard of before - as well as an army of Inferi and Golems at their command. It would probably behoove Voldemort to parley with them instead, but that all depended upon how many recruits the Dark Lord could convert in his other conquests. If he had enough, he'd bring the fight, just because he could. And he wouldn't care how long it took to crush them to his satisfaction.

The Middle East would be wiped clean. Voldemort would waste no time in an area that contained no wizarding schools, very few resources that wizards could actually use, and a plethora of Muggles gripped by religious fervor.

The Yanks would prove the hardest. They were damned formidable as a culture to begin with, and their cowboy President had no problem using their nuclear arsenal as a final solution, if need be. And with their neighbors to aid them on either side, it would be as costly a war as Asia. Coupled with the fact that with so many schools to collapse - Chichén Itzá, San Juan, Berkeley, New Orleans, Boston, Vancouver, Quebec - it could take years to bring this continent to heel. For that reason, Voldemort would probably leave it for last. He'd want it, though, that much was sure. There were too many potential assets here to pass up.

That's when it occurred to Draco that Snape may have been right all along: this bloody war would _never_ end. Not unless someone killed Voldemort and all of his major lieutenants before any more areas of the world could fall to them. Because once the momentum had been built, it would be hard to squash it.

He'd have to hide these memories and thoughts deep, for it wouldn't do to have his Master know Draco's treacherous planning.

X~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~X

**November 29th, 2001**

There was a raid today on the Hogwarts internment camp and Warrington and Flint were both killed. Draco hoped they'd suffered badly at the last, the dumb motherfuckers.

The question on everyone's mind, though, was who was responsible? The last he'd heard, the resistance had been dealt its death blow when the oldest Weasley son – William - and his troupe of do-gooders had all been _Avada_'d last autumn in a surprise raid. With his former teachers at Hogwarts all believed to be dead, and most of the Ministry either converted or killed, and the remaining members of the Order of the Phoenix hunted down, who did that leave?

He held his suspicions in check, not wanting to get his hopes up.

X~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~X

**December 1st, 2001**

She was alive. He'd seen her. He'd talked to her. She'd touched him. Healed him.

Draco tried to keep his heart in his chest, ordered it to calm itself, and disciplined his mind to keep his lunch in his stomach instead of on his shoes or the floor where it wanted to hurl itself.

He'd apparated to the Hogwarts pit this morning to investigate the attack on the camp, as he'd been ordered by Amycus Carrow. The camp was abandoned, having been compromised, and wouldn't be reestablished until the cause of its defeat was determined, so Draco felt safe in removing the Death Eater hood from around his head just then. He hated wearing the woolen cap; it smothered him, made him feel less of a human being, so he only put it on when required. Today, the hood could stay off - at least for now.

Walking the magical ley lines first, tracing the pattern of spells used for defense, he'd then walked back over them to feel out the offensive spells. What he'd picked up hadn't made any sense: there hadn't been any magical attack on the wards. And when he rose thirty meters into the air with a confidently cast "_Levicorpus,_" and looked down at the land below, he couldn't see any patterns of physical battering, either. Dropping back down with "_Liberacorpus_," he then cast every spell he could think of to try to detect different types of magic that had been in the area within the last week. Almost immediately, he identified the resonant energies of two Transfiguration spells, and a slew of successful _Confundus _castings. So, someone had snuck in, jinxed the guards to distract them, and attacked from the inside. Simple. Clever.

He walked the entire camp, meter by meter. At the door of Flint and Warrington's bunks, there was also the trace 'residue' of a spell he was completely unfamiliar with, but the signature was too slippery and elusive to hold onto long enough to catalogue. It felt similar to a Disillusionment Charm, but... not quite. Whatever it was, it was the most powerful magic to cross this plane since Voldemort had finished off the castle, and it rattled Draco's teeth just to detect it. So, this was how the intruders had snuck up on the base commanders, and possibly how they'd managed to get away, too.

He let his feet take him whenever they wanted at that point, allowing his mind to puzzle through the problem. He tended to think better on the move.

Why would only two people be sent to attack a base with three well armed, proficient Death Eaters and three equally powerful Snatchers? Not to mention tempting the offensive and defensive spells on the area. That seemed like a suicide mission. But the assailants hadn't died; whoever had done this had gotten away clean. So, what were they really after, if not to strike a desperate, last blow?

He considered the facts in logical progression. First, this camp wasn't a main base of operations. Second, it didn't house important prisoners. Third, it was too far removed from London, and Flint and Warrington weren't men of enough importance to warrant receiving any chief intelligence debriefings. Fourth, the attack had been well planned out, as evidenced by the fact that the infilitrators had managed to get past the elaborate wards surrounding the place, and cast spells within the confines of the prison camp without backlash (meaning, they'd figured out how to resonate their auras to mimic Death Eaters; one of the 'gifts' of bearing the Dark Mark was that your magical aura changed). Fifth, the only members of Voldemort's number to be killed were Flint and Warrington. The others - Vaisey, and the three Snatchers - hadn't been touched.

Draco hadn't gotten an official head count of the camp after the attack, when everyone had been herded out to the nearby prison in Inverness, but he had a sneaking suspicion that when he analyzed the data, he would find some of the prisoners missing. This had seemed like a 'break out' mission, not an assassination attempt. Flint and Warrington must have just been an accident... No, from the fact that both had been found in their bunks, not lying in the mud outside, they had been snuck up on specifically for the purpose of ending their lives. Revenge killings.

He blinked when he approached the edge of the pit, not even realizing he'd stalked to this distance. Unable to stop himself, he looked down in the exact spot he'd seen Katie Bell fall. Below, he could just barely make out her remains. Fucking Warrington hadn't even had the decency to cast an incinerate spell on her corpse to make sure she hadn't become worm food. She'd spoiled out here, all these weeks.

Just like he would die someday - rotted and alone.

It was suddenly too much. Too much pressure. Too much hatred. Too much _fucking regret_. He couldn't breathe. All he could see was Bell's broken body, the face caved in, blackened by the elements, her arms spread out to her side... as if she were awaiting crucifixion... or salvation.

He'd done this to her. By inadvertently hexing her to begin with all those years ago (her heart had been damaged by the cursed necklace, and because of that, she'd been deemed unfit to be anything but a prisoner loading bodies and had been brought here months ago, by him, for that purpose). By not reporting Warrington for raping her as soon as he'd heard. By not stopping any of them when they walked her over here that day and tortured her to death. This was all his fault.

_HIS __FAULT__._

He backed away from the pit, put his hands to his head and started screaming. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, all right? _I'm fucking sorry!_" He raged and tore at his robes, throwing them off. He didn't care that he was getting drenched in the downpour. He let the heavily falling rain defeat him, because inside, he was defeated by his own guilt. He raked deep gouges down his cheeks with his fingernails and fell to his knees, crying. Red, sanguineous fluid splattered on his hands, rolling off into the mud beneath his fingertips.

Mud. Blood.

"Where are you?" he'd cried to the menacing grey sky, "Where are you, Mudblood? _Where are you?_" He stood, whirling in circles, feeling like he was flying to pieces, talking to ghosts. He knew she wasn't there. He knew it, but he was crazed with needing to tell her, praying she'd somehow hear him. "Stay away! You hear me? He wants you! The bastard wants you! _STAY THE FUCK AWAY!_"

"I know, Malfoy."

The universe stopped.

_She_ had just talked to him. He'd heard _her_ gentle voice speaking to him. He'd cracked. Finally, it had happened. He was truly nutters.

"Malfoy, I don't have much time," Granger spoke again, sounding hurried, urgent and fearful. "I can't explain everything right now, but I want to come to your house tonight and talk to you. Ten o'clock. Can you lower the wards for me? Is there anyone else there?"

He turned around then to find the source of his madness, and his breath caught in his chest.

It was _her_.

"Granger? Am I... dreaming again?"

She closed the distance between them in a rush, putting a soft hand on his shoulder. Just as she had that afternoon when he'd awoken in the infirmary after being hexed nearly to death by Potter in Myrtle's bathroom. "Draco, you're in shock. Let me help."

He didn't even bat an eyelash when she raised her wand to his face. It hadn't even occurred to him until later that she could have done anything she wanted in that second – even taken his life or _Imperio_'d him – and he wouldn't have raised a hand to stop her. Instead of hexing him or destroying him, though, she healed him instantly, and cleared his mind of the crazed mania. Suddenly, there was clarity.

He stepped back and hastily looked around, terrified someone had seen them. Every dark patch, every deep pocket where light did not reach was a potential enemy. He silently _Accio_'d his wand from where he'd dropped it near the lip of the hole, preparing three spells in his head in case of attack. "Get out of here," he warned her, not looking her in the eye, keeping his face trained on the edge of the forest, where he could almost feel them being scrutinized. "Someone's here. Go, Granger. Run!"

She put a hand on his arm. "It's Theodore Nott. He's with me." She pointed to a section of the forest where the trees were bunched up – and right where Draco's attention had been fixated, although he hadn't actually seen a blasted thing. "Disillusionment Charm. He's playing chameleon right now."

He didn't take his eyes off the spot, even though he couldn't see a stitch of his old friend, who was still and blended perfectly. "Why did you come here?" Then, it hit him. "You're the ones who attacked this camp."

"We can't stay out in the open like this, Draco," she stated the obvious. "I have to go. It's too dangerous for both of us. Is it safe to come to your Manor House tonight at ten? We need to talk."

He nodded. "My parents are with the Dark Lord's army on the continent. No one lives there but me and one house elf. No one visits."

She dropped her hand from his person. "Then, I'll see you tonight. Don't tell anyone, promise?"

He looked back at the spot Theodore Nott was supposedly hiding, and still, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. When he whirled around, she was no longer there. She must have Disillusioned herself well, because he couldn't even catch a glimpse of a moving blur, or strange patterns in the air where the rain hit and bounced off. Even her tracks in the mud were gone.

"_Don't tell anyone, promise?"_

It had been the exact same thing she'd said to him that day in the infirmary when he'd berated her for coming to his side.

X~~~~X

It was now ten o'clock, same night, and Draco stood alone out on the front balcony at his home in Wiltshire and looked for any sign of _her_. He'd dropped the safety wards a minute ago, but so far, she hadn't shown. The rain had passed – for the moment – and the moon cracked her mystery face from behind angry, black clouds. The wind blew his hair back, chilled him, but he refused to cast a warming spell. If he caught pneumonia and died, it would be only what he deserved, after all.

Something moved along the far row of tall yew hedges, near the front gate. He gripped the stone balustrade before him with his free hand, rocking on the balls of his feet with nervous energy.

"Hello, Draco."

She was behind him again. How had she moved so fast without apparition? He turned, wary, keeping his wand in the palm of his hand.

"Inside, quickly," she gestured, stepping through the open French doors into his bedroom, not looking back.

He followed, curious, and waved the wards back into place before stepping inside. He then locked the door behind him and set the privacy charms. When he finished, he finally turned to her, giving her his full attention. She pushed back the hood on her robe, and immediately, he noticed the changes. She'd grown into the beauty he'd glimpsed back in Sixth and Seventh Year at Hogwarts, but her face was also tinged with knowledge and sorrow. Her hair was about the same, but less bushy, more lifeless. Her golden-brown eyes were harder and she looked tired. She didn't smile.

Then again, he had changed as well. Grown up, grown out - lost his innocence.

They stared at each other across the meter or so between them, and it was a pathetic reunion, he thought.

He couldn't hold her gaze for long, and looked down at her form instead. She wore Muggle clothes. They didn't flatter. The jumper was huge and dirty, the jeans equally as filthy and torn at the left knee, mud-crusted hiking boots. A dark blue wizard's robe was clasped around her neck, though. It needed hemming as it was too long, he wryly though. Overall, she looked hungry and tired and in desperate need of a bath. "How long's it been since you ate?" he asked. "Or showered?"

Her cheeks flushed with obvious embarrassment. "We do what we must to survive," she replied offhandedly. "But this isn't why I've come…"

He held a hand up and stopped her. "Moppy, come to me," he bade into the room, and with a crack, a three-foot tall, blue eyed, female house elf apparated in. She twisted her magenta dress between her small fingers.

"Yes, Master?" the creature asked in a timid voice, noting Hermione's presence immediately. "How may we serves?"

"Moppy, please prepare a hot meal for my friend here to eat, and a week's worth of food supplies to go," he requested. "And draw a bath in the spare bedroom. And bring her some of Pansy's old clothes to change into. If you would, please."

Hermione started to protest. "That's not necessary…"

He held up a hand again. "You'll hurt her feelings if you say no," he used one of her known weaknesses against her.

Hermione looked down and to the side, obviously embarrassed. "Draco, I didn't come to make pleasantries. There isn't time."

He shrugged and indicated the emptiness surrounding them. "There's always time now."

Draco watched her struggle for an excuse, but he also saw, fleetingly, the winsome desire to be clean and well-fed again pass through her eyes. Who wouldn't want such things? Especially now, with the world gone to the loons. And he could offer such luxuries easily. It might be the only thing he _could_ do for her. "I won't stand for you being so filthy," he growled, then amended himself quickly so as not to appear too eager. "Not in my home."

The predictable response riposted. "Then I should leave. I wouldn't want my... my _Mudblood _germs to get all over you ever again."

"Sit," he ordered, pointing to the couch. "And forget your pride, Granger. Gods know I let go of mine a long time ago."

There was at least a minute there where he was sure she would walk out, and inside, he suffocated at the thought. He watched the emotions flit across her face – fear, anxiety, guilt, interest, and finally wearied acceptance. With a nod, she moved to sit on the black leather couch that aligned before his warming hearth. His shoulders unknotted and he joined her, sitting far enough away for both their comforts. "Talk," he bid, unsure as to how to proceed, but needing to hear her voice – that obnoxious, know-it-all voice he'd missed so very much.

She stared into the fire, the orange flames licking her irises, bronzing her orbs. "I... Draco, I know you want out. I've been watching you since my birthday. You're getting bad at hiding your disgust. I think… they know it, too. Flint did. Warrington, too. That's why they… killed Katie… like they did. I think it was a test, to see how you'd react." She sighed heavily. "Do you want to leave them, Draco? Leave the Death Eaters for good? Stop them from doing any more evil... like what they did to Katie? Do you want me to... take you away and hide you? Tell me true. _Please._"

Draco was floored. How could Hermione trust him after everything that had gone down? He'd helped the Dark Lord kill her best friend, scatter her loved ones to the wind, and had aided and abetted in the murder, torture and enslavement of innocents. And yet, here she was, in his bedroom, trying to save him… again. He just didn't get it. How could anyone have faith in someone like him?

But she'd always been this way, hadn't she? Bloody Gryffindor, goody-good ideals.

That morning in the infirmary, and a week later in the Room of Hidden Things, she'd reached out to him with a similar proposition then, too. But he hadn't taken her up on either of her offers. Lucius and Narcissa, he knew, would never have gone willingly with him, and he'd have been branded a traitor by those he'd loved and revered more than the world. So, he'd stayed behind and did what was asked of him, sort of. And he'd paid for it later, under Voldemort's wand, in his own blood and in the nightmares that still haunted him.

At the time, he hadn't been strong enough to say 'yes' to her. Now... He watched her carefully when he replied. "Say I'm interested, Granger. What are you offering?"

Hermione shook her head. "I need a definite answer before I reveal anything more. In or out, Draco? Do you want to help end this madness?"

He ran a hand through his hair. It couldn't be that easy, could it? "In. On one condition."

Tension hovered in the air between them. "Name it."

Moppy returned with a small crack of thunder carrying a tray of leftovers from the night before. "Mistress' bath is ready," the small elf squeaked, placing the serving platter on the small coffee table before the couch. "And clotheses has been left, with towelses." She turned her small, thin body back to Draco and bowed. "Does Master need Moppy anymore?"

He gave a small shake of his head. "You may retire until called again later," he instructed. "Thank you."

"Moppy lives to serve the noble Master," she warmly intoned with another small bow, and with a snap of her fingers, she was gone.

Hermione was looking at him as if he'd grown three heads. He knew she couldn't believe he actually treated his house elf with any kind of respect, but Draco had learned something important after Potter's death: he couldn't afford to alienate a single person who was loyal to him, even servants. "Eat and bathe," he commanded brusquely, standing and moving to the French doors, looking out. "Then we'll finish this negotiation."

She was quiet, but he heard her pick up the utensils and the shifting of the tray; heard her soft chewing in the silence, and the crackle of the fireplace. He felt her eyes on him the whole time. "Is Nott here with you?" He couldn't see any signs, but then, that Disillusionment Charm he'd cast earlier today was good. _Really_ good.

"No," Hermione replied, and he noted she didn't talk around her food. For some reason, her manners pleased him. He'd missed the more refined dining etiquette. Crabbe and Goyle, when he'd seen them, were pigs. "I'm alone, Draco."

He couldn't help the next words out of his mouth. "Are you fucking him?"

The silence was broken only by her shifting on the couch in discomfort. "That's none of your business."

Jealousy licked at his belly. He and Nott had been friends, sort of, once upon a time. That he could have traded places with the tall, dark haired wizard – that _he _could have been the one at Granger's side from the start – gnawed at him. 'Could have been' regrets always sucked.

"I buried him, you know," he confessed, his mind jumping from thought to thought as he stared out into the darkness. The moon's light had hidden itself away once more behind a curtain of angry darkness above, and splatters of rain fell erratically onto the deck outside, increasing in tempo until there was a curtain of heavy water smashing onto the stone. It was loud. "Potter. Snape helped."

There was utter stillness behind him, and then a small, smothered sob and a sniffle.

"Someday, I'll show you where he is, if you want," he offered.

His heart felt heavy with the memory of sneaking back that night alongside Snape, finding what was left of Harry James Potter and spiriting it away back to his Manor House where, he knew, the body would _never, ever_ have been thought to have been brought. Voldemort hadn't cared, fortunately. He'd already let his Death Eaters have at the corpse, and when they'd tired of it, they'd thrown it into the lake to be fish bait. Broken, limp as a rag doll, every bone shattered, every organ mutilated, bloated from water log, drained of blood, scarred with slashing cuts, it had disgusted Draco to even touch his one-time rival's cadaver. But he'd forced himself to. Because, no matter how much he'd despised Harry Potter when alive, the boy had shown the kind of courage in the end that Draco could only dream of owning. Scarhead had deserved to be buried, not left to rot.

"The bedroom next door is the one on the right, when you exit here," he explained. "The bath should be illumed. Take your time. Come back here when you're done." With that, he turned and left hurriedly, his long legs taking him quickly down to his father's study, where he opened the liquor cabinet and poured himself a full glass of Firewhiskey to burn the image of Potter from his mind.

X~~~~X

He returned to his room at eleven-thirty, but Hermione had not yet reappeared. He hoped she hadn't left. He hadn't sensed a shimmering in the wards to indicate anyone coming or going, but then, she'd moved so mysterious and fast before that it was quite possible that whatever magic she was using was somehow undetectable. He'd never heard of such a thing, but this was Hermione Granger, and he had learned a long time ago never to underestimate her.

He placed the half-empty bottle of Firewhiskey down on the coffee table next to the dinner tray, and while sipping away at the third glass he'd poured himself that evening, he noted she'd eaten every bite of the food that had been provided. The plate had been, literally, cleaned. She'd been starving. He felt hollow in his stomach at the thought.

Ten minutes later, she came in. He felt her presence before she'd even reached the door. Her aura was like light behind his eyes, too repulsively brilliant for him to ignore. He wondered why that was; why he'd never felt this for any other person before or since. He'd first become aware of it the morning he'd awoken in the infirmary and saw her sitting by his side, and until today, he'd been poignantly aware of its loss from his life.

She moved along the backside of the couch to resume her seat on the opposite end from him. He smelled clean jasmine and soft vanilla as she passed. Glancing at her as he took another sip of his drink, he noted that her hair had been washed and now lay in soft curls about her, dried with a flick of her wand, he was sure. Pansy's soft cotton, dark blue pants and black, cable-knit sweater looked good on her, but were in strong contrast to her shoes – which she'd chosen to keep, but had cleaned up with, apparently, a _Scourgify _spell. She also continued to wear the blue wizard's cloak, although it, too, had been magically sterilized.

"Better," he commented. She folded her hands in her lap, looking acutely uncomfortable. As she opened her mouth to speak, he cut her off again. "Drink?" He offered her his glass.

Her face shut down and she narrowed her eyes in suspicion, setting her jaw for a fight. "You'd share with _me_? Aren't you afraid of catching from a Mudblood?"

He smirked. It was the first time he'd felt like doing so for months, and it felt good to regain this lost perverseness. "If I was, you wouldn't be in my home, sitting on my couch, eating my food off of my plates and utensils, taking a bath in my tub, or wearing clothes I had given to you, would you? I wouldn't be offering to let you drink from the same glass as me, either." He paused and threw out one last bit to make his point. "And I wouldn't have ever touched you."

She seemed warily confused. "But you said I was filthy."

He snorted rudely and cut her off again. "Because you were. Now you're clean." He held the glass out to her again. "Take it and drink. You look like you could use it."

Sighing in defeat, she reached out to accept his offering. Their fingers caressed in the exchange of the glass, and both noticed, freezing for a two second pause, before she removed the drink from him and brought it to her lips. She downed the half-glass in one pull, and then put the empty on the coffee table. Her hand was, he noted, trembling. "What was your condition, Draco?" She sounded trepidatious.

With only a second's pause, knowing he had nothing left to lose at this point, he spit it out. "You. I want you."

Her eyes widened and he felt the shiver in the air pass between them. She licked her lips in nervous apprehension, refusing to meet his eye, staring into the fire again. "What… do you mean?"

"You know what I mean, Granger," he murmured low. "Don't play coy."

The leather creaked as she shifted and leaned back, her face gone white as death. "You can't be serious. Why ever for?"

He shrugged, knowing she'd see the gesture from the corner of her eye. "If I'm going to throw my lot in with the losing side, and probably be tortured to death when I'm caught, I might as well get what I've wanted for years."

Now she looked at him, dead on. "You can't be serious," she repeated, and he could practically feel her growing ire. Her brows snapped downward and she frowned. "Stop playing games. Tell me what you _really_ want, Draco."

He didn't blink an eyelash. "I told you, Hermione: I want you. In my bed, as my wife." He lowered his lids, tossing the incentives out that he knew she couldn't reject. "In exchange, you'll get everything I know about the Death Eaters – each and every one of their weaknesses, information on the internment camps, and insight into Voldemort's long term plans. I know spells that the Dark Lord invented himself and taught to only his 'loyal' Death Eaters. I'll teach you and your whole bloody rebellion all about them. And I'll fight for you, protect you, die for you, if it comes to it." He reached for the Firewhiskey bottle, uncorked it and drank directly from the lip in one big swig. When he'd swallowed the burning mouthful of bourbon, he didn't let go of the bottle, palming it for another swig soon. "All that in exchange for you. That's my price, Granger. Take it or leave it."

She stood in a flash, indignant, her fisted hands at her side. "I came to help you, you bastard! I didn't have to. I could have left you to suffer madness or worse back in Scotland. And this… this is how you treat me?"

He raised one golden eyebrow at her, took a long haul on the whiskey, and put the bottle down on the table again. "And how have I treated you, exactly? I haven't abused or molested you. I haven't threatened you. On the contrary, I've been quite civil, I think. I've fed you, cleaned you up, given you fresh laundry. I intend on giving you a week's worth of food to take out of here tonight. _I will __allow__ you to leave._" He said that last darkly, letting her know that he didn't have to let her go. He could haul her up before Voldemort right this instant and reclaim his status amongst the elite Death Eaters. He could kill her and bury her body next to Potter's unmarked grave. Or he could just tied her down and repeatedly take from her what his body screamed for him to have.

In one fluid motion, he stood and stalked her across the floor, she taking a step back for each one he took forward, until her shoulders collided with the back wall. He pressed in close, barely touching, bending his face down centimeters from hers. "I would be good to you, Hermione, if you'd let me. You already know we have chemistry. And you might even come to like me someday. Maybe more."

She shook her head, refusing to look him in the eye again, staring over his left shoulder instead. "If you force my hand like this, I'll never like you."

His fingers hesitantly touched hers down by their sides, tentative at first, then quickly, boldly stroking. He heard her breath hitch, saw her dark orbs widen, felt her body shudder in reaction. "How is this forcing?" He leaned his nose down to her throat, inhaled deeply, scenting her natural musk combined with the bath oils, and exhaled, breathing hotly against her skin. Her trembling grew more pronounced. He slowly ghosted his lips over her skin, traveling to the delicate, peachy-gold shell of her ear. "You once let me touch you just like this," he reminded her. "And more." The tip of his tongue barely flicked her lobe. "That one time was enough to burn me, Granger. You've haunted me since." He latched a suckling wet kiss onto her pulse and she gasped. "I've never been able to let you go."

She shook her head slightly. "Liar," she accused. "You let me go the night you went up to that Astronomy Tower." Shaking his fingers free from hers, she shoved hard against him, pushing him back. "Liar!" There were tears in her eyes – tears of betrayal, anger, guilt.

With greater weight, he pushed back, buckling her arms and smashing their bodies together. His hands gripped her wrists tightly, pulled them up above her head. "I never wanted to," he tried to explain, but she squirmed and fought against his hold, breaking his concentration. "He would have killed me and my parents. Would you just fucking _listen?_"

She stilled, stopped struggling just like that. "I _did_ listen to you. That day I was brought here and tortured by your aunt. I heard you loud and clear." She turned hateful eyes on him. "You sold me out."

"I had no choice!" he countered. "If I'd said anything else, acted any other way, Bella would have taken you immediately to _him_ - all of you. And if I'd defied her and tried to rescue you outright, she'd have tried to _Avada_ me in a second. Her or Greyback. My parents would have stepped in the way in either case. All of us could have died. I _had_ to take a middle road. I had to pretend I wasn't sure. It kept her off-balance, made her think twice about calling Voldemort. I was hoping she'd throw all of you in the dungeons, so I could go back later and get you out."

Hermione sneered. "Well, you certainly gave a great performance, Draco. But then, Slytherins are known for using cunning to achieve their ends." She curled her lip up in disgust. "You haven't changed. It was a mistake to come here."

She cut him up, inside and out, unmanned him, made him out as little better than a monster. Little better than someone like Fenrir Greyback. How dare she judge him! She hadn't walked his path. She hadn't seen what he had these last few years. He'd almost gone mad from the things he'd had to do and endure.

Pressing his forehead to hers, he locked eyes with her. "I can help you turn this whole fucking war around, maybe even help you kill your greatest enemy. But you know my price, Granger. No more negotiations. Are _you_ in or out?" With that, he let her go, stepped back, struggling in his mind to control his rage and natural sexual impulses at the same time as releasing her. He was so hard in his pants that it hurt to breathe.

With a sob, she hurried past him, heading for the French doors.

"Granger," he growled, "I'll give you a week. Talk it over with your friends." He turned and tried to catch her eye. She'd stopped at the French doors, not looking, but clearly listening. "Then I want your answer, in person. Here, same time, seven days from now. Come alone." He clapped his hands once. "Moppy."

The house elf was instantly in front of him, holding the satchel full of food that she'd diligently packed. The small creature waddled over, magically levitating the sack, which was taller than she stood and fatter around than her arms could reach. She deposited the bag in Hermione's hands. "For yous, Mistress," Moppy smiled sadly. "We packs it especially good for yous, because Master Draco asks us to."

Granger sniffed back tears and graciously accepted the gift. "Thank you, Moppy," she recognized with gratitude. "Very much."

"You may retire, Moppy," Draco charged. "Good night and thank you."

Moppy bowed, wished her master a good night and left with a snap of her fingers.

Alone again, the two former lovers stared at each other. Draco's heart under his ribs ached painfully. "Seven days, Granger."

"Why not eight? Or eleven?" she countered angrily. "What does it matter how long you give me?"

He sighed, running a hand through his hair again. "Because I've been ordered to leave for the continent in eight days, to give my report to Voldemort about the camp's investigation in person." He glanced at her, suddenly feeling ten years older. "If I go, he'll most likely kill me for not having caught the perpetrators by then. And since I have no intention of dying, I don't plan on answering the summons. Which means, I've got to run. One way or the other, Granger, I'm getting out of this mess. I'd much rather it be with you."

She stared at him in dread, then sympathy – which sliced him up worse. Finally, she nodded. "Seven days then." Grabbing up the sack, she turned the handle on the door and opened it inwards. The slanted rain attacked, drenching her front in seconds. She pulled the hood of her robe up and hid away her hair and face. Draco ached, wanting to ask her not to go out in that squall – to stay with him here, in the warmth, but he forced himself still and silent, hoping this was not the last time he would ever see her.

"Thank you," she acknowledged. "For the food… and allowing me to be clean again."

The lightning flashed, signaling the storm's intensity was just getting started, followed a second later by an ominous rumble of thunder. Hermione stepped out onto the balcony, leaving the door open behind her, letting a chill wind fill the interior of his room, sucking away all the heat Draco had wanted to share with her.

* * *

_**TO BE CONTINUED…**_

* * *

**AUTHOR'S EXTENDED NOTES:**

**Please review! I'd love to hear your thoughts! **


	2. Chapter 2

**December 2nd, 2001**

The Room of Hidden Things had been the scariest place in the world to the sixteen-year old Draco Malfoy. He'd resented going there with a passion that bored on repulsion, working on repairing that satanic Vanishing Cabinet - that looming, soulless piece of blackened oak that seemed to silently balk at his increasingly desperate efforts with an almost maniacal glee. Failing that task had not been an option, though, and the anxiety every time he left that overcrowded, chaotic room - knowing that doing so brought him one day closer to his reckoning - ate away at him, consuming his very soul, leaving him breathless and panicked, at first, and later in resigned tears.

That was, until _she_ invaded that private sanctum. That day in late April, Granger had stepped into his dark, bleak world to save him. At least, that's what she'd told him.

Just like now.

Unlike last time, however, Draco had every intention of taking her up on her offer.

Swirling his glass of dark amber Firewhisky, he leaned back into his father's tall, midnight blue, dragon-hide chair in the study, staring across at the only person in the world he felt he could share his secrets with: his oath-bonded brother, Blaise Zabini.

"You think she'll really agree to your terms?" his co-conspirator asked, intrigued. Zabini knew all about Draco's history with Granger when the two had taken the Unforgivable Oath back in sixth year never to willingly betray the other. Blaise had seriously been there for him, agreeing to take the Dark Mark after the war so Draco wouldn't be alone. He'd intentionally remained on the same hierarchal level in the organization as his friend as well, to assure they watched each other's backs. But Blaise had never made it any secret to Draco that he wanted them to flee this war; that he hadn't wanted to get involved in the first place, and that he'd done so only to uphold their vow to one another – Slytherin brothers to the end.

Draco shrugged. "I certainly fucking hope so." He kept swirling the contents of his glass, watching the liquid revolve around and around, threatening to spill over.

Blaise was silent for a few seconds, measuring him. "But you're going to join her whether she does or not." It wasn't a question. His friend knew him better than he knew himself most days.

With a sigh, Draco put his whisky down on the large, cherry-stained oak desk, deciding to forgo finishing it tonight. "Come with me," he offered.

His best friend sniffed with disdain and stood, pacing back and forth like a caged animal.

Draco watched Blaise agonize over the decision, ultimately knowing what the wizard's answer would be: the Vow made it impossible for them to betray each other – unless it was released by mutual consent. Being the bastard he was, though, Draco had no intention of letting Zabini stay behind, nor of letting the man off the hook and releasing the Vow. No, Blaise was staying connected to him to the bitter end. That's what friends were for, after all.

"You realize we'll be killed, don't you?"

Draco shrugged. "I'll be killed anyway in a few days once the Dark Lord learns I've done nothing to solve the insurgent problem up north." He folded his arms over his chest. "So, its join Granger, or we run."

Blaise ran a hand over his short, buzzed hair – the same look he'd maintained since sixth year. His full, pillow lips pursed, and then he exhaled as he made the commitment. "No choice."

Draco shook his head. "Nope."

Zabini closed his eyes, laced his fingers behind his neck and cradled his head back into his hands, tilting his face to the ceiling. "True? I'm fucking tired of playing the coward anyway," he admitted. "Tired of looking into the faces of the Seconds and the Thirds and the camp slaves and seeing what we've done to the world, Drake. We've brought it all to its end." He turned and stared with hard, black eyes at him. "I want it back the way it was. I want to laugh and not be afraid of the consequences. I want to shag whoever I want, instead of who they tell me is acceptable. I'd kill to see a Quidditch match again. I _want _it all back_._ So screw it, let's do this. What's the worst, we get killed? Big fucking deal. Better than living in this shitehole and licking boots for the rest of our lives. At least we'll go down doing the right thing for once."

Draco listened to the passion in his friend's voice, heard it resonate with his own soul, and knew Blaise had said everything he'd been feeling for months.

He picked up his glass of Firewhisky and reconsidered his earlier decision to sleep sober tonight, downing the contents in one go, feeling the burning alcohol licking away at the fire already stirring inside him. He twirled the crystal goblet in his hand for a few seconds, watching the light catch in its fractures, casting rainbows of color across his pale hand and realized that he had just made the conscious decision to betray his parents, too.

_Fuck 'em._ They'd gotten him into this mess to begin with, without remorse or shame for what he'd had to endure as a result and without thanks or praise for his sacrifices on their behalf. Any love he'd harbored for them had been beaten, hexed or scathingly denounced out of him over the last few years. As far as Draco was concerned, Lucius and Narcissa could go down in flames with their Master.

He threw the glass casually into the fireplace. The tinkling smash as the expensive Italian-crafted piece hit the black stone of the hearth was as a harbinger of doom. "To the end, then," he held his hand out to his friend to seal the bargain.

Blaise crossed the distance with two paces and they clasped hands, just as they had the night they'd taken the Unbreakable Vow. "To the end," Zabini solemnly agreed.

Draco nodded, accepting his friend's trust once more.

**X~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~X**

**December 3rd, 2001**

Draco felt the tingle of clumsily cast magic against his back just as his titanium serpent ring – one of the only things his father had gifted him that was actually worth its weight in gold, given to him for his sixteenth birthday - squeezed his finger to confirm his suspicion that he'd just been hit with a tracking spell. Turning off the main alley, ducking into the labyrinth of small alleys and twisting passages in Knockturn Alley to throw his spy off, he swiftly backtracked to catch the person unawares from behind.

When the 'dynamic duo' – Crabbe and Goyle - rounded the corner ahead of him, he'd had to bite back on a laugh, wondering what nitwit would send the pair out as scouts. The two big gallomps actually worked well together, each compensating for the other's oh-so-obvious shortcomings, but still, they might only have half a brain if they put their skulls together.

Or so he'd thought.

An hour later, Draco was having to reassess his old friends. Like hounds to the quail's roost, they'd relentlessly dogged him, seeming to easily pick up his scent, even though he'd nullified the tracking spell, cloaked himself in Disillusionment, and transfigured himself into a woman to throw them off.

It was time to leave London. He'd have to conduct his business at Gringotts tomorrow.

Changing his features back with a wave of his wand, he Apparated away. He jumped twice to two different locations before settling on the third jump in Scotland, back to The Pitt.

The camp's resonating energies still had not dispersed completely, despite the fact it was in disuse. He avoided going over to the edge of the abyss, not wanting another attack of conscience. Instead, he pattered over to the spots where that he'd sensed that strange magical aura. It was still there, though faint. He wondered what it was again. Draco had never felt any magic so… _slippery_. It was there, and yet, when he tried to capture the essence, it was impossible to collect. It almost felt alive and sentient, in a sense.

The essence of magic, Draco knew from his classes at Hogwarts, was a wild thing, formed by the energy of every living thing on the planet. Because life itself was unpredictable and tempestuous, so was its by-product. But primitive wizards and witches had learned long ago how to control and contain magic for their uses through a series of elaborate and specific rituals. Originally, those had taken the form of sacrifices and offerings, crude incantations and songs, and bizarre ceremonial dances around fire or under moonlight. Such archaic observances were how the study of spellcraft was born. Over the millennia, thank the Founders, the art had been refined down to the slight flicks of wands and the focus of mind patterns that modern practitioners engaged in daily. Gone were the days when blood, semen and silly superstitious bones casting were required.

With the age of wizarding enlightenment during the 11th century, the 'science' of the trade had finally been explained on paper. Spells worked because they were kinetic patterns of energies that existed at a specific moment in time, gathered from the very life force of the world, and were focused into a very specific, static pattern of use through mental discipline and will by a wizard or witch. As Edgar of Whitcombe had discovered in 1231 and published in his book _Vis a Veneficus_: when released, the residual energy signature of a spell remained behind, fixed to its intended target, and slowly dissipated over time (much like a human soul after death, Draco had always fancied, although he had yet to determine why ghosts like The Bloody Baron could linger long after the original body they'd inhabited was dust; it was a question that still stumped the wizarding world). The more energy and will put into a spell, the longer its residuals remained behind – and it was during this period that spells could be 'felt' and a wizard could identify their use. Thus began the 'birth' of wizarding sleuthing and soon after, the establishment of the Aurors.

There were, basically, two types of spell casting, Draco remembered Professor Binns droning on about in his History of Magic class (thank goodness he'd set his quill to taking notes for him while he'd snoozed during this period; he'd been able to go back later and actually read all about this stuff – which had saved his life more than once in this bloody war). White Magic was the first and most predominantly practiced kind. This magic was taught in wizarding schools as the basic curriculum. It drew upon the more buoyant, radiant energies of the earth to do its bidding. Dark Magic, its complete opposite, extracted its power from the more feral, shadowy nature of life.

As Draco knelt down and ran his hand over the cold spot at his feet, he realized that this new energy that Granger and her friends had used was neither of the kinds he'd ever personally experienced before. It seemed to exist outside the realm of traditional magical spell theory.

He straightened up, walked around a bit more, trying to get a feel for this new magic, but each time he attempted to collect and 'taste' its essence on his tongue, it evaded him. Frustrated, he resolved to ask Hermione about it when he saw her next. This type of spell could very well be the key to destroying the Dark Lord.

**X~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~X**

**December 4th, 2001**

Draco left Gringotts with his stash inside a bag bespelled with an Undetectable Extensions Charm. Even the greedy goblins had no idea how much he'd taken, and what exactly he'd hoarded away. It would have to be enough, though. He couldn't risk opening any other vaults.

Transfiguring his features in an alley, he went out to buy supplies.

**X~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~X**

**December 5th, 2001**

Frederick Avery Sr. had been one of Voldemort's lieutenants, and amongst his oldest, greatest allies. He had also been a demented, extremely sadistic two-sided bender, doggedly determined on converting as many "worthy" individuals as possible to the Dark Lord's calling - in between his terrorizing of Blaise Zabini, that was.

In many ways, Avery had been worse than Draco's aunt, in that at least Bellatrix's fanaticism could be excused away by sentimentality. She was, after all, have it off with the Dark Lord, and being his lover brought with it a certain expected level of loyalty. Avery had only _wished_ he was in such a position – literally – and that's what had made him dangerous. He had been a man denied what he'd most wanted: direct, unimpeded access to experiencing the dark power on every level with the man who held _the_ skeleton key to the devil's playground.

Now, Avery was no more than maggot food. Draco had made sure of that. But not before he'd made the nasty, creepy old geezer pay for what he'd done to Blaise ten-fold. He'd then hid what he'd done to the body by spade-and-picking Avery with a flick of his wand into the flower garden out in the back of the cottage good ol' Freddie had occupied, making sure he'd been buried deep enough to keep the smell down. He'd considered burning the corpse to ash, but thought that after what the bastard had done to Blaise, being turned to pulpy, rotted mush and eaten like dinner by tiny worms served Avery much better.

Unfortunately, this now meant that Draco and Blaise would be wanted fugitives earlier than he'd intended. He rested his hopes on the slim chance that no one would notice Avery Sr.'s absence until Granger came back to the Manor House in three days, when he and Blaise would then escape to wherever the hell it was she and her insurgents were hiding. That was his only bet.

A terrifying thought flitted through his head then: would the Dark Lord return from his battle in Russia when he found out one of his favorite henchman was dead? A shiver of fear traveled up his spine and spiked into the back of Draco's brain stem. He hoped the Durmstrang wizards were putting up a hell of a fight, keeping his Master occupied.

When he reached the hallway, he grabbed Blaise's arm and pulled his shell-shocked friend out the door behind him. There were no words spoken until they hit the outside, arctic chill air. "Hold on," Draco gruffly commanded, lifting his wand and Side-Along Apparating Blaise to the Malfoy family estate in Wiltshire.

When they arrived, he dropped the wards and they entered, and then automatically waved the defensive spells back into place upon stepping across the threshold. They walked up the long drive towards the front door – actually, Draco kept up a brisk pace, tugging a dazed Blaise behind him - crossing the expanse of the wide front lawn in a little less than three minutes. He kept looking over his shoulder to make sure no one had followed them, his paranoia on high alert.

When they were safely inside his domain again, he led Blaise through the Entry and Drawing rooms, down the side hallway and back towards his father's Study. He left his friend standing in front of the fire, a numbed expression painted on his mutt, and crossed to the liquor cabinet, getting down two glasses. He poured Zabini's first and moving back to him, thrust the full glass into his friend's shaking hands. The adrenaline must be kicking in now, he figured, seeing his friend's eyes clearing as they took in where he was and what he was holding.

Draco returned to his father's desk, throwing down into the chair, and poured a glass of the expensive libation for his nerves as well. He hastily swallowed back the contents, and imbibed one more full-topper before he got up the guts to actually speak to his friend. "You okay?" It was a stupid question, and that the answer was obvious: no, his friend was _not_ okay. He probably wouldn't be okay ever again. The haunted look in Zabini's face panicked Draco. In all his years serving the Dark Lord, he thought he'd seen the worst of it, but nothing had compared to what he'd walked in on this afternoon in that cottage… "Do you want me to send for Daphne?"

His friend downed the contents of his glass in one swing, finally coming around, and then threw the glass into the hearth with a sob, hanging his face in his hands. The shock had apparently worn off. Draco silently sat and waited, knowing there was nothing more he could offer his best friend than his solid presence and his father's top shelf alcohol right now. After twenty minutes, the tears quieted, and Blaise reached into his pocket and took out a handkerchief, rubbing at his cheeks and eyes, and clearing his nose. "Sorry about the glass," he muttered, his deep voice raspy. He cleared his throat. "You're father's going to have a conniption with two of the set busted now."

Draco shrugged. "He'll get over it." He paused, looking down into his empty glass. "Blaise..."

His companion shook his head, cutting off all conversation between them. Clearly, he had no intention of discussing what had happened - not now, anyway. "Send for Daph," he simply requested.

Draco nodded and through the Floo Network contacted his fellow Slytherin, requesting the eldest Greengrass daughter come immediately to Malfoy Manor. In a few minutes, the leggy blonde stepped through the now-extinguished fireplace. Her piercing blue eyes took in the situation, and Draco nodded for her to go to his friend. She crossed the distance to where Blaise was now sitting on the arm of the sofa and took him in her arms without a word. The two had been fuck-buddies for years, although Draco suspected Daphne to be much more emotionally tangled than Blaise in their relationship. In either case, she would be able to comfort his friend now.

"The house is yours. Use whatever you need and call Moppy if you want food," Draco murmured to her. Then, he turned and left the room so his friend and Blaise's lover would have some privacy, and made his way up to his bedroom. He needed a shower after what he'd seen.

Stripping off his clothes in a line heading straight through his carpeted room to the giant bath, he got the temperature just right and climbed in without any preamble. As he allowed the water to hit the back of his neck, he shut his eyes tight and tried to cut off the images, but they ghosted him nonetheless.

This was his fault, too.

Blaise was only involved with the Death Eaters because they were best friends. If Draco had never taken the damned Dark Mark to begin with, his best friend would never have joined up, and he'd probably be safely hidden away right now with his grandmother in Italy. His selfishness had cost his friend too much over the years, and now it had cost him what was left of his innocence.

_Fuck_, how could Blaise endure something like _that_? Draco shook his head, trying to erase the memories, and beat his fists against the wall in anguished guilt for his friend's suffering. When mental discipline alone didn't do the trick of easing his conscious, he tried to scrub his guilt away with soap instead, wishing he could scour the inside of his brain as easily as he could his skin.

**X~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~X**

**December 6th, 2001**

Moppy informed Draco that his "dark-skinned friend" and the "blonde, white lady" were asleep on the couch in his father's Study. The house-elf had actually blushed when she added, "_well _sated," to the commentary.

Draco let out a relieved sigh. Apparently, Blaise would survive his rape and torture so long as Daphne was at his side. She could make him feel sexually powerful again, and not a victim.

This, however, created a quandary. Instead of just the expected party of one, he now had to convince Granger to accept Blaise and Daphne into the deal, too, as Draco felt a keen responsibility for the man who'd remained faithfully at his side all these years. He'd make Hermione understand there was no choice any longer for any of them. To be safe, he'd have Daphne take an Unbreakable Vow not to betray them.

He allowed his friend to sleep off the activities of the night before, asking Moppy to assure food was left for the couple and that they had blankets and pillows and access to any room in the house they wanted, minus his parents' and his bedrooms. He also asked her to clean and mend their clothes, and then return to him with lunch around one o'clock that afternoon.

Hiding out in his bedroom all day seemed like a good plan. He wasn't sure he could face Zabini again so soon. The feelings were too raw; Blaise's, he knew, would be of embarrassment and shame and anger and his own were of guilt, regret, and sorrow. It was better to let Daphne handle this. She'd been on the receiving end of rape, and understood what her lover would need now more than Draco ever could.

He stared out the French doors towards the front entrance of the house, watching as the first snow finally fell from the leaden sky above, and wondered what Granger was doing just then. Where was she? Was she warm and safe? Was she eating the food he'd sent along with her, or had she wrongly suspected it was all poisoned and thrown it away that same night? That might be something she'd do.

Was she sleeping with Theodore Nott?

With a growl, he ran a hand through his bangs, pushing his platinum hair off his eyes. If she was fucking his former friend, that type of dalliance was going to stop once she became his wife. Draco would tolerate no other man touching what was his – not ever.

**X~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~X**

**December 7th, 2001**

The thing about Patented Daydream Charms that Draco truly enjoyed was that they allowed one to relive a particular fantasy they indulged in, only more powerfully so. In the P.D.C., the user actually engaged the memory with all five senses, as if it were really happening, providing the ultimate opportunity to engage in the naughtiest imaginings possible. Fortunately for Draco, he had a variety of life experiences to pull a particularly wonderful wank session from. After all, who needed false imaginations when you could pick from any number of realrecollections?

However, the one memory in particular that he continually seemed to favor involved his first time having sex. No matter how many women he'd had in his bed since – and he'd had quite a few once his status as a Death Eater had become known among the groupie daughters of Voldemort's loyalists, despite his lower status on the rungs of power - none compared to the first woman he'd ever fucked. Just the memory of Hermione Granger's enticing, wet kisses and her low, moaning voice in his ear was enough to get him hard. That it had been her first time as well had made it all the sweeter.

Palming the glass vial containing the necessary potion for the spell to go off, he debated the wisdom in such an indulgence. What if Blaise called for him while he was out for the hour that the Charm was in effect? What if something else dire happened in that time?

Bollocks it all, he'd take the risk and hope for the best, because right now, he needed this private time. He'd been high strung all week, and he required a sexual release.

Downing the vial in a single swig, he put the empty container on his bedside table, and then lifted his wand and cast the P.D.C. Lying back in his bed, fully undressed, sliding under the sheets, he let the reflection of his youth seduce him once more…

_Hermione's small body – not yet fully a woman's, but not a child's any longer either - was pressed into his as she slid her hands up his arms to wrap about his neck. She'd taken him completely by surprise, her bold recklessness something he'd never have expected from the likes of her. _

_But then, she was Gryffindor, and they were known for being brash and impulsive. _

_They stared at each other for long seconds, trying to decide if this was a wise idea. _

_Draco was drawn into her dark, shimmering gaze, and against his chest, he could feel her heart pounding, the staccato rhythm lulling his brain and body into submission. Blood pooled between his legs, making him instantly hard. He could feel the skin stretch back from the tip of his penis through his pants, and his sack below grew heavy and warm. _

_He wanted her and was surprised by that realization. He'd never thought in a million years that he'd want know-it-all Granger in that way. Or that she'd want him back._

_Well versed in the art of snogging and heavy petting-touching-licking by now, as he and Pansy had practiced their skills on each other since fourth year (although he'd held off on culminating their relationship in bed because he'd found her all too eager and hardly a challenge worthy of such an important event in his life), Draco bent his head to Hermione's exposed white throat and nuzzled. Against him, she shivered as his hot breath very slowly ran up the length of exposed flesh, circled the shell of her ear, and then trailed back down to rest over her pulse. She didn't pull away, nor did she berate him for his audacity. Instead, she remained passive, waiting, her whole body seeming to thrum with anticipation. _

_Risking a little more, Draco snaked his tongue out and licked languidly over her fluttering heartbeat. Her breath hitched and she unconsciously twitched, turning her head to give him better access. Accepting the invitation eagerly, he latched on to her skin, suckling wetly with enough pressure to leave a love bite behind – proof he'd done at least this much with her, should she decide to slap him and storm out now. _

_His heart leapt in his chest when instead, she gasped and her fingers strayed into his hair to grab on tightly, and she pushed her body against his so that they were intimately touching now. _

_His lips moved to her lobe next, flicked and teased, then bit it gently. He lathed behind her ear, then followed the smooth, golden path back down to her collar and worked his way around to the other side. Hermione's head tilted back and around without argument. This time, when he reached her ear, he worked down her jaw line instead, pressing kisses all along the length, working closer to his ultimate goal. _

_Hovering above her lips, he opened his eyes and looked into hers. If they did this, it would cross some invisible, unspoken line and he __knew__ things would never be the same between them. He was very careful now, anxiously awaiting her agreement to proceed, asking permission with his eyes, but letting this be her decision. If he stepped into her warm circle, it would be because she wanted him to; he wouldn't let her later claim that any of this was undesired and coerced from her. _

_A small, single nod of her head was all it took, and he sealed them together fervently without further hesitation, slanting his mouth hotly and wetly over her strawberry-scented, lightly glossed lips, his hands sliding up her waist, around her back, one thrusting into her curly hair and grabbing, the other supporting the sway of her spine. Granger was as passionate as he, kissing back enthusiastically. There wasn't a lot of skill, but she was fiery and true, her mouth telling him in no uncertain terms that she'd wanted this, too. He slipped his tongue between them, coaxing hers with slight touches before pulling back, over and over. The wet smacking sound of their lips meeting, pulling apart, meeting again was drowned out only by their combined moans of pleasure._

_There was a wooden chair and a modestly cluttered, flat table right behind him. He remembered where they were by reaching into his mind for the layout of the room, and an idea formed in his head that was so perfect, he was compelled to act upon it. He stepped backwards slowly, without looking, his lips still latched onto hers, and when the backs of his legs bumped the chair, he pulled it with one foot and angled it so he could sit. Dragging her over him, straddling her legs to rest her weight upon his thighs, they didn't even break rhythm as they flowed into the chair together seamlessly, continuing to eat at each other's mouths. _

_They kissed for a long time - Draco wasn't sure of the number of passing minutes, as his every sense was tuned into her solely – but he'd let his hands wander her torso, front to back, up and down, touching every part of her that he could reach in that time. He fully learned the feel of her petite form over her clothes, and then, he started divesting her of them. First to go was her robes. He unclasped them, sliding them to the floor. Next went her jumper. He pulled it up and over her head quickly and then swooped in and kissed her again to prevent her from protesting. He suckled on her neck as his fingers slyly pulled her uniform tie off, then her shirt from the waist of her skirt; he unbuttoned in reverse. When he reached the last button at her collar, he slid the cotton off her shoulders, kissing into the exposed 'v' of her throat, allowing his tongue to bathe her cherry blossom fragranced skin. Hermione moaned as he cupped her breasts, pushing up and suckled one nipple through her light pink cotton bra. Her fingers ran through his hair, she wiggled on his lap and mewled cutely, driving him wild._

_As he turned his attention to the other breast, his fingers slid around her back and with a practiced ease, unclasped the bra. They then glided up to her shoulders, and started pulling the thin straps down. He felt her stiffen against him, and moved hastily to cut off any objection. With a quick removal of the fabric, her rosy-tipped nipples were exposed. He took one into his mouth, lapping gently, rolling his tongue over the areola. Instead of decrying his enchantment of her naked body, now she keened in pleasure at the sensation of having her breast suckled and swirled around his moist mouth. Brushing accidentally against his erection as she writhed on his lap, she elicited a deep, desperate groan from him as liquid heat shot to the spot._

_He gave her breasts serious attention, allowing his long, pale fingers to caress and cup them at the same time as he feasted on them. He loved their color, their perkiness, their honest reaction to his touch. But it wasn't enough. He wanted more._

_Drifting his right hand down her flat tummy, he rimmed her bellybutton, then followed the top hem of her skirt to her hip and down to her thigh, where he rested it for a moment before slowly making circles in an upwards pattern, heading towards the junction of her thighs. His fingernail trailed the edge of her knickers back and forth several times before daring to slip across the cotton fabric, finding her slit. He slid his lips up over her throat again and bit gently on the spot that he'd earlier discovered, and made her gasp loudly and jerk forward unconsciously right as he smoothed a path over her clit and down to the bottom, then back up again._

"_Oh, Merlin!" she'd gasped breathlessly, the first words between them in at least an hour._

_He continued to tickle her over her panties as his other hand made its way to her left thigh and skated up and under her skirt as well, grabbing onto her hip at the same moment as his right hand pulled the edge of her panties back and ducked inside to tangle in her crisp pubic hairs. She hissed, and he was sure this was the moment she would regain her sanity, push him away and slap him for daring such liberties with her. _

_To Draco's surprise, Hermione tilted her hips towards him, giving him better access and let him continue his seduction. Refusing to spend any time contemplating his dumb luck, he went with the moment, and dipped his fingers into her cleft. She was damp already, and the discovery made his body tighten and dragged a rumbling moan from the back of his throat. Seeking out her lips for another burning, bruising kiss, his mind spun riotously with the newly discovered truth: Granger wanted him as much as he wanted her!_

_He ran his fingers up and down inside her labia, but realized that it was too narrow a space for him to freely access her. Spreading his legs a little wider, he forced hers to open as well, and this gave him the angle he sought. A single finger dipped up to rim her opening, gathering her moisture greedily and he dragged it back up her insides, soaking her with her own juices. When he finally slipped over her clit, she was practically drenched. She cried out as he rubbed circles around her tiny bundle of flesh at the top of her vulva, and when he dropped back down to insert a finger into her tight, wet hole. _

_She was a virgin. That much was obvious by what he was touching. Pansy had felt the same until she'd given herself to Kevin Entwhistle. After that, she'd been fully opened up. He knew the difference by feel alone. _

_Draco had known what he'd wanted from Hermione the moment she'd let him kiss her, but now that he was faced with the truth of her untouched state, it made him more determined than ever to have her for his own. _

_Removing his fingers from her body, he grabbed her around the waist and stood, pulling her up with him. Involuntarily, her legs wrapped around him to keep from falling, and this made it easy to lead her over to the nearby table and sit her on it, where he proceeded to unzip her skirt in the back. Then, with a sweep of his arm, he pushed books and assorted odds and ends that cluttered the flat space to the floor, where they fell with a loud crash. Neither party gave this disturbance much notice, as they were currently swept up in the raw, unfettered feelings that now engulfed them. He laid her back gently against the darkly stained wood of the table, his mouth never leaving hers, his hands traveling to her hips again, yanking off her skirt and knickers in the process. His lips traveled down her body, biting each nipple in the passing, tonguing her abdomen all the way down as he pulled her clothes and shoes from her at the same time. When he reached her pussy, he knelt on the floor, grabbed her thighs, pressed them apart, and dove in._

_He'd gone this far with Pansy many, many times, so he knew exactly what to lick, where to flick, what to suck, and with how much pressure. He had his partner squirming under him in seconds. When Hermione was too busy gasping and keening to notice, he took his hands off her and removed his cloak, pulled his jumper over his head, and unbuttoned his shirt, sliding it and his tie off at the same moment he dipped his tongue into her entrance, tasting her salty-lemony flavor, inhaling her musky scent deeply. _

_His belt was the next to go, and he unbuttoned and unzipped his slacks, freeing his aching cock into his hand. Touching just the tip, feeling the dipping pre-come weeping off him already, Draco knew he'd never last inside her the first time if he didn't take care of his immediate need for release. Once he had done that, he could go a little longer the second time around, the same as when he wanked. _

_Stroking himself as he ate her out, he focused on her arousing smell and the noises that parted her lips, and in a little less than two minutes, he came, spurting his seed all over his hands even as his teeth scraped her clit, causing her breathing to accelerate. He was panting and gasping, but kept up his assault of her, even as he relaxed, wiping his hands on his pants. Then, he grabbed his wand from where it lay beside him, on top of his robes. _

_He looked up at Granger to see if she had noticed what had just transpired, but her eyes were tightly closed, her teeth were biting her bottom lip, her face was scrunched up and sweaty and pink and she was oblivious to him having found his satisfaction. Thankfully, she was also unaware of what he was about to do to her. He pressed his wand to her tummy and spoke the charm to prevent pregnancy that he'd read in a book on sex and memorized for just such an occasion. She hadn't even noticed his casting, so caught up in what his mouth was doing to her. The wand dropped from his fingers onto his cloak again and he grabbed her hips, feeling his body responding once more, preparing itself for that second go-around. _

_Adjusting his technique so she'd orgasm soon, he really turned his attentions to pleasing her then. His tongue dipped in and out, and he added his finger again, careful not to break her hymen yet by pressing too hard or too deep. Her fingers reached for his head and pulled him in and her thighs and bum tensed, as she prepared to go over. She mumbled incoherent words, and then she was thrusting into his face and calling out his name over and over again. His penis twitched in response, fully erect, rearing to go as the blood gathered once more in his balls. He held back, wanting to give her this. _

_When she climaxed, a flood of warm fluids coated his cheeks and chin, shining his lips. Her back arched off the table as she gasped one last time. Damn, Granger was pretty, wasn't she? He hadn't ever thought that before, but now… Within seconds, the wave of pleasure rolled past her, and she relaxed, falling back boneless, breathing heavily. _

_It was now or never._

_Rising to his full height, he let his pants drop to his ankles and reached for her. Her eyes were shuttered as she rode the blissful after-glow, so he leaned forward over her and kissed her again, grasping his length in one hand at the same time and lining his crown up with her opening. When he was in position, he grabbed her hips and thrust. It took three reteats and advances to fully break through her barrier, and when it gave and he pushed up into her tight, silken body, parting it for the first time, she cried out in pain, gripping the edge of the table and tensing up. All that accomplished was to pull her tighter onto him, allowing his cock to bury in her to the hilt._

_The feeling of being surrounded by her was almost too much. She was moist and warm and her soft inner muscles clenched around him as she squirmed. He had to bite his lip hard to keep from coming right then. "Don't move," he growled, struggling to keep his control, not wanting to lose this opportunity to enjoy their first time by chumping out too soon. "Just… stay still."_

_She went motionless in an instant, whimpering. Seconds ticked by, and when he had finally regained his discipline, he looked down and noted her face was scrunched up, and tears leaked from her eyes. She was violently shaking as well. He leaned down, resting his weight on his elbows to either side of her, and fingered through her hair again. "Look at me," he bid, speaking in soft tones. Her eyelids fluttered open, and there was pain in her dark honey depths. "It's my first time, too," he told her, wanting to ease her somewhat, let her know how special this moment was for both of them._

_Her eyes widened. "Really?"_

_He nodded. "I'm not sure how long I'll last. You feel really good." He grit his jaw, feeling the fire bloom up inside again at just the thought. "Do you know how to pleasure yourself? Rub your own clit?"_

_She blushed a brilliant crimson and nodded. "I've touched myself before."_

_He gentlykissed her. "Then do that now so we'll come together, all right?"_

_Her fingers dipped between them to stroke her tiny nub and she drew air in between her teeth. He could feel her petite hand moving against his abdomen as she worked, and her insides compressed making his breathing shallow as he fought hard not to move as his body desperately wanted him to. He watched her face as she drove towards another climax, and it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever witnessed. She stared back at him the whole time, except when her lids were forcibly closed by exquisite feelings shooting through her. He felt her heart slamming against his, caught her air as she exhaled, and watched, enthralled and silent, not wanting to break her concentration._

_With a swipe of her tongue, she moistened her lips. "I'm almost there," she told him and began whimpering again. "Kiss me, please."_

_He complied, tasting her urgency to reach her fulfillment in her small gasping breaths, in the thrusting of her tongue against his, in her soft pleas. His hips moved of their own volition, slowly easing in and out, and fuck, it felt so good - almost too good to hang on._

"_Hurry," he enticed her. "Hurry, Granger. I can't-" He fought harder than he ever had to contain the lava boiling through his veins. His sack drew up tight against him, made him clench every muscle in his lower body and torso. He was quaking, pressed up on the balls of his feet, angling his hips to begin thrusting away as his pace increased. Now he was the one whimpering. "I'm coming," he gasped, unable to hold back any longer. "I'm sorry, I can't wait."_

"_Bring me with you," she sobbed against his lips, her body tensing and he knew she was on the brink as well. _

_He grabbed her hips and began pounding, his mind an animal's now, unable to think, only to feel. With a handful of hard shoves, she went over, dragging him with her. Her whole body rippled around his penis, clenching and releasing in waves that milked his cock, and in response, his orgasm tore through him, shooting an electric current through his center all the way up his spine into the back of his brain. Fire exploded behind his eyelids and through his shaft. He was shouting in pleasure, saying her name at the same time as he heard his own called out. He kept plunging into her for many more seconds as his body released in several spurts._

_The high slowly evaporated, leaving him utterly drained, and he literally collapsed into Hermione's arms, his body giving up its strength, his face pressed into the curve of her shoulder. __It took many minutes to recover, but eventually Draco was able to regain feeling in his arms and legs, and he eased his weight from his lover's body. _

_Pausing to rest on his elbows, their gazes locked – steel meeting bronze. Neither spoke, seemingly unwilling to break the spell and remind them that hateful reality awaited beyond this moment in time. Instead, Draco bent his head ever so slowly, nervously, and kissed her again, wanting to thank her for making his first time so bloody wonderful. It was better than he'd imagined it would be. _

_Hesitantly, Granger returned the gesture, but he could see in her eyes the doubt beginning to creep in. _"_Don't regret that," he requested in a near whisper, his fingers playing with her springy curls. _

_She bit her lip. "I don't," she confessed. _

_He nodded in acceptance, realizing that was the extent of the soft words they would probably speak to each other. It had been incredible sex, the kind you'd remember for the rest of your life, but it didn't change anything between them. It couldn't, because frankly, although he didn't love Granger, he'd been changed by her now, and that change was dangerous for both of them. If Voldemort knew…_

_With a final, lamenting kiss for what could never be, he let Hermione go, leaning up and slowly pulling out of her body. His cock and her thighs were streaked with dark blood. "Don't move yet," he bid, then bent and retrieved his wand and Scourgify'd them both. Cleaned of the evidence of their liaison, he helped her to sit up and regain her feet. _

_When she was naked in his arms, pressed against him, Draco felt the overwhelming urge to hold her, so he gave into it, pressing her cheek to his heart. Her arms embraced him back. To his utmost surprise, he felt this beautiful witch's aura shining about him, creating a cocoon of comfort and safety that was warm and soothing. __He'd never experienced anything like it, not even with Pansy. It felt right somehow. _

_Reluctantly, Hermione pulled away to gather her clothes and redress, and with her body's loss came the theft of all his warmth. Draco was suddenly very cold inside and out. Pulling his slacks up and slipping his clothing back on, he did so without looking in her direction. It strangely hurt to have her near him, and yet, the thought of her going away pained him even worse._

"_Please think about what I said earlier," her voice dragged him out of the shade of his misery and briefly back into the sunlight. He glanced up to see her fully dressed, her hair pulled back into a ponytail, her eyes wide and shimmering with emotion, her cheeks still flushed. She was __so__ pretty. Why hadn't he seen it before? "Please, let me help you." She was staring at the Dark Mark on his left forearm, revealed to the world – to her – finally. There was sadness and a desperate determination glinting in her gaze. "Draco, I don't want you to go back to him! I don't want you to be his slave!" She was twisting her fingers in anxiety. "I know I can't force you, but if… if you need me… I'll do whatever it takes to protect you, if you'll let me. You know where to find me."_

_With that, she hurried away, rushing out of the room without looking back. Draco's heart was torn in two, knowing there was no way he could ever take her up on her offer. Not now. He was doomed to lose her._

He awoke from the charm not randy and rearing to go, but sadly deflated. He hadn't trusted her then, hadn't wanted to disappoint his parents, and was too afraid of the Dark Lord. And he'd paid for all of that stupidity a hundred fold in tears, blood and self-hatred.

Never again. He would go with her this time, even if she denied him his request. He wanted her more than anything now, and would willingly take the second option, if refused the first.

**X~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~X**

**December 8th, 2001**

"Do you want to escape all this?" he heard Blaise ask her. "Do you want to be free?"

Daphne Greengrass sat on the sofa next to her sometime-lover, staring into the fire and considering her options. The two didn't touch. Draco knew Blaise cared for her, but he also understood his friend's reluctance to get too comfortably close to the beautiful blonde at that moment. If she said no, they'd have to _Obliviate_ her - going deep, which could cause some damage. He prayed his friend would have the stomach to do it, because of the two of them, Blaise was the better caster of delicate energies.

"If you do this, I'll need you to take an Unbreakable Vow with Drake and me," Zabini further explained. "To not betray our trust."

"Will you Vow the same to me?" she asked, her melodic voice soft, thoughtful. "Will you promise to protect me, Blaise?"

Zabini hesitated. Daphne was delicate and fragile, like a newly emerged butterfly. She needed a man to care for her and give her constant reassurance; she was emotional high maintenance. Blaise had enough problems to contend with. For one, the guy had never really mourned his mother and sisters, holding all that rage back. And now what Avery had done to him…

"All I can do is try," Blaise replied. "I don't want to leave you behind. If Voldemort wins against Durmstrang, you and your family may be at the whim of the Death Eaters."

The Greengrasses had played neutral in this war, the same as the Parkinsons. They paid tribute to be left alone. But Draco knew that eventually that wouldn't be enough. There would come a time when they'd be forced to choose, and he knew very well what that meant for Daphne and her younger sister, Astoria.

"Can Tori come with us?" she asked. "My parents… I don't care what happens to them. They made their choice when they chickened out years ago." She sounded bitter. "But Tori's still a child in her mind in many ways. They'll destroy her."

Blaise glanced at him, the question in his eyes. Biting back his initial denial, he stared back into that face of the most loyal person he'd ever had the privilege to know, and easily acceded. Zabini had given him faithful friendship, and if he was asking this of Draco, he would not deny it to his best friend.

"Sure," he replied. "As long as she takes the Oath, too."

A determined glint came into Daphne's eyes then – something neither man had ever seen in her before. "Then I'm with you," she decided. Standing, she held her arm out to Blaise in the ritual fashion for the Vow.

Draco presided over the terms of the Oath, binding his best friend and the man's lover to them both under pain of death. After, he opened the wards on his house and allowed Daphne to Disapparate to collect Astoria. She agreed to return that night by eight o'clock with her things and her sister in tow.

"This just keeps getting better and better," he grumbled, worried about the growing size of their defection. He hoped Granger wouldn't be too pissed. He'd explain it to her and pray she'd understand.

Blaise nodded. "Thanks, mate," he hesitantly offered, massaging the back of his neck with one big hand. "I'd have felt bad leaving her behind for them to hurt." They both understood it was only a matter of time for the Greengrass daughters, seeing as how they were pureblood witches of some measure of power, and extremely attractive. Draco would be surprised if Voldemort hadn't already planned out which of his lackeys to give them to upon his return.

Draco shrugged. "Anything for you."

He felt Zabini go utterly still next to him. The two of them stared into the roaring hearth, the heat chasing away the winter chill at their backs. "Anything?" his friend asked, so soft as to be almost unheard.

Draco took another sip of his father's Firewhisky, finishing it off. It was his third glass, and he was beginning to feel the effects. His cheeks were suffused with blood, and his tongue comfortably loosed. "I owe you more than I can ever pay, Blaise. You've been a loyal friend. The brother I always wanted."

Blaise said nothing, merely nodded. Silence stretched between them for a few minutes, both men lost in their own thoughts. Finally, his friend turned to face him. "I've got to get back and start packing. I'll meet you back here at eight as well."

"The wards will be down for only five minutes," he let his friend know. "So don't be late."

With his patented smirk and a flash of white teeth, Blaise raised his wand. "I'll try not to splinch myself in eagerness to return to your side," he joked, and then was gone.

Replacing the wards after Zabini disapparated, Draco moved, his mind already jumping two steps ahead in preparation. He summoned Moppy to him, and filled his faithful servant in on the plan. The elf gave a squeak in fear, but when she was reminded of how brave and true Dobby, her old friend, had been, she became excited with the plan. To his surprise, he learned that even house elves wanted revenge on Voldemort.

**X~~~~~X**

That night, at eight o'clock on the dot, Blaise returned. Daphne did not.

* * *

_**TO BE CONTINUED…**_

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTES:**

_**Vis a Veneficus**_** = Latin for "The Nature of Magic"; I made this tome up for the fic. Not part of JKR's canon.**

**Two-sided bender: Older fashioned term for 'a bisexual male' that is making back in fashion as modern slang in Britain.**

**Mutt = Slang for the face.**

**Full-topper = Slang for a topped off glass of any liquid that's for drinking, usually beer, but often can be heard for harder alcohol. Not usually said with wine or more refined or "fruity" drinks.**

**Pissed = I have been informed by my 17-year old daughter that this American slang phrase meaning "angry" (whereas in England, being pissed means you're drunk) has recently joined a resurgence of all things American in speech over the last year. In an effort to appear hip, I'm incorporating some of these interesting phrases into my writing wherever appropriate. Hope you are as amused as I am.**


	3. Chapter 3

**December 8th, 2001**

By eight-thirty that night, Blaise was in a right panic about Daphne's non-appearance. "Something must have happened to her," he worried. "I need to check." The terms of the Vow they'd just taken earlier that evening were clear: he would _try_ to protect her, even if it meant risking himself.

Draco ran a hand through his bangs, pushing them off his face, frustrated with the circumstances. "If she ran into a trap, you'd get caught, too," he warned his friend.

"No choice," Blaise reminded him, holding up his arm, which still bore the reddish crisscrossing welts of the Unbreakable Vow.

Draco resignedly nodded. "Be back before ten," he warned. "I mean it. And if there's trouble, dodge it first before coming back here." He walked his friend to the balcony outside his bedroom. "You remember the signal, so I'll know to drop the wards?"

Zabini nodded. "_Periculum Minimums Viridus_." A small, sparkler-like green flare burst from the tips of their wands, occuring on both ends once cast, as their wands were charmed to respond to each other. It was their prearranged signal for each other back in their school days.

Draco put a hand on Blaise's shoulder. His friend was only a tad taller than he, so they were able to look each other in the eye. "Be careful, mate," he offered, sincerely worried. "I wouldn't want to have to be the one who tortures you if you get caught."

For a second, there was a serious regard, as if Blaise were searching Draco to see if he would, in fact, torture him if the Dark Lord ordered it. Then his friend's cynical smirk drew up the side of his face in natural Slytherin style. "Whips turn me on, you know," he chuckled in jest. He jutted his chin towards the Manor's boundary. "Let me the hell out before you turn all weepy on me, will ya?"

Draco waved his wand and lowered the wards around his home, and with a crack of splitting air, Blaise had Apparated out. He waited a few moments, to be sure his friend wouldn't have to fast return, and then he closed the wards again.

"Hello, Draco."

He swiftly pivoted, wand up and ready, a curse upon his tongue, only to realize at the last second that he'd recognized the voice. "Almost lost your head that time, Granger," he growled in irritation.

She was standing just inside the French doors, her robes tightly drawn around her, her hood shadowing her face so he couldn't see her from this angle. He stepped towards her to return to the bedroom, and she automatically retreated. Like the other night, with each advanced measure he took, she fled, but he noted the wary tension to her silhouette, and knew under her cloak, her wand was trained on his heart. As he shut the balcony doors, locking them behind his back, his gaze fastened on her. "Were you going to fire that hex at me anytime soon?"

Lips tilting in sardonic amusement, she pushed her hood back and dropped open her cloak, lowering her wand arm. Once again, Draco was captivated by the glints of gold within her dark cider-colored eyes. He thought, perhaps, they were one of her best attributes, aside from the more obvious, feminine parts.

"Wipe the drool off your chin, Malfoy," she bit, frowning. "The whole reason we're in this mess is because your thoughts give you away every time."

He felt as if she'd just slapped him one hard. "What the hell does that mean?"

Hermione stared hard at him, and shook her head. "If you hadn't been so obvious that you were in trouble during sixth year, I never would have noticed you to begin with. And then we wouldn't have-" She cleared her throat, obviously uncomfortable with that line of thought. "We wouldn't have… _you know_, before. Hence you wouldn't have propositioned me the other night, and I wouldn't be standing here now caring a whit about your pathetic life."

"_What _wouldn't we have done before, Granger?" he mocked, taking several steps closer, daring her to say aloud that they'd had sex. He was pushing her boundaries on purpose, wanting to see that spitfire in her eyes that he'd missed for so long.

She clenched her jaw. "You know very well what I mean," she waspishly replied, her eyebrows snapping down over her brow in irritation, stubbornly refusing to rise to his challenge. This both amused and aggravated him. "And Dumbledore knew what you were up to then, too. Your face gave you away to him. He was trying to reach out to you the night he died." She sniffled. "Harry needed him-"

Sudden fury rose to the forefront, igniting his temper, shoving his playful mood away in an instant. "Don't you _dare_," he hissed, taking an ominous step towards her, his hands curling in fists. "Don't you try to blame this fucking war on me!" He was practically in her face now, her trembling wand tip pressed deep into the skin over his left pectoral. "I never asked to be made a pawn! I never wanted Potter to lose! _I never wanted any of this!_" He was so angry that instead of his voice rising in volume, it had gone coldly, viciously sibilant.

Granger stared up at him with wide eyes, her bottom lip quivering in real fear, as if she only then realized how dangerous an animal he'd become over the years. "Then why didn't you take my hand when I offered it?" she whispered, tears of panic and distress filling her eyes. "I even gave myself to you, and you _still _refused my help! Things might have been different if you'd just trusted me, Draco. If you'd walked away from the Room of Hidden Things when I asked, then…" She shut her eyes in anguish. "Why did ever you finish fixing that godforsaken Vanishing Cabinet?"

That she spoke the truth, and that she seemed so truly terrified of him knocked the wind right out of Draco's sails.

Yes, indeed, what might have been different if he hadn't gotten the cabinet working and hadn't let the Death Eaters into the castle that night? It was a scenario he'd played over and over in his head countless times over the years. He didn't think much would have changed. Snape had told him later that Dumbledore would have been dead within a few days or weeks anyway from a curse he'd acquired by destroying one of Voldemort's horcruxes. Potter wouldn't have gotten much out of the old Headmaster anyway. But still, the 'what if' plagued him as yet one more regret to add to the pile.

In a much calmer way, he spoke to her. "I was a kid, Granger, and I was scared," he admitted. "Not just for myself, but for my friend's lives, for my parent's lives, and for your life." He reached up, unclenching his free hand, and despite the nagging voice telling him that touching her right now wasn't the smartest move (Slytherin's soul, he _wanted_ her!), he stroked her cheek, feeling his fury melting before the strength of her shining aura once more. "The Dark Lord hates me. Always has," he explained. "He'd have killed you and everything you loved if he suspected that you meant anything to me."

She blinked twice, and two hot, salty trails rolled down her cheeks. He stopped one with his fingertip, capturing the liquid against his nail. "So, it wasn't... just sex... for you? That day we-?" she hesitantly asked. "You know, a sordid, heat of the moment thing?"

He sniffed and shook his head over the whole, lamentable tragedy. "I could have let Pansy at me at any time if I wanted something as common and unremarkable as '_just_ sex,'" he stated without boast. "Heat of the moment? I suppose. I certainly didn't plan on losing my cherry on an old teacher's desk in the Room of Requirement - hardly an idealized spot for getting laid proper. Sordid?" He paused and shook his head. "No. You were the right girl. I've never regretted being with you that day."

He stepped into her, and her wand dropped down as her hand did, giving him the opportunity to press his entire length against her warm, soft body. Behind his ribs, his heart was hammering and he was fully erect in his pants. He knew she felt him pressed against her abdomen by the stiffening of her back. "I meant what I said, Hermione. I've thought about you _a lot_ over the years. About kissing you and touching you - being inside of you, going deep." He bent his mouth down, hovering, slowly running his bottom lip against hers as his free hand cupped her cheek, while the one holding his wand slid around her back, to secure her frame to his. They both had their eyes open and were looking through half-lids at the other. "Sometimes I fancy I smell strawberries, the same scent as the lip gloss you were wearing that afternoon. And I can still taste your salt on my tongue." He shut his eyes against the shudder that ran through him. "_Fuck_, Granger, I loved coming inside you. I've touched myself for years to thoughts of having you again." He shook with the tactile and sensate memories, his body aching with heavy need now, his breathing raspy as he fought for control. "Have you thought about that day at all? About me? Like that?"

He not only heard, but he felt her swallow multiple times, trying to rein in her fear. "Yes." It was barely a whisper, unwillingly pried from between her teeth.

Shutting his eyes for a moment, he smirked. She _did_ want him. This, he could work with. Peeking through his long lashes, he stared into her eyes and cupped her cheek with gentle pressure, assuring she couldn't look away. "Give me your answer then," he bid in a low, honeyed voice. "Will you accept my offer?"

Shaking like a small bird trapped in a cage, Hermione nodded. "On one condition," she murmured.

He chastely pressed his lips to hers - not really a kiss, just a light brush of skin - never taking his eyes off hers. "Name it," he offered, his free hand moving to tangle in the curls behind her neck, softly stroking the curve along her pulse with his thumb.

"I don't…" She stopped and licked her lips to give herself some courage, and her tongue accidentally nipped his top lip, which made his heart jump a beat. "I don't want to get pregnant."

The heated moment was suddenly shattered. "Unacceptable," he countered, moving his face away, and standing back to his full height, loosening his grip on her, preparing for another fight. "I want children someday."

Hermione sighed. "No, I meant that I won't bring a child into this world _now_. We kill the Dark Lord and all his lieutenants first. We re-establish the Ministry. Until then, we take precautions."

Draco considered the counter-proposal. It made sense. He wasn't sure he'd want to risk her being pregnant and delivering a child under these conditions anyway. And he definitely wouldn't want his son to grow up knowing nothing but Voldemort's version of the world. "I have a caveat to your stipulation," he offered back, seeing a potential loophole in her plan. "If he's not dead by the time you're thirty, we try anyway." She started to shake her head, and he put his fingers over her mouth to shut her down. "I want an heir, Granger," he explained. "It won't be much to leave him, but it's important. The Malfoy line has survived since the 10th century. I won't let Voldemort be the end of my family history, no matter my feelings for my parents." She made to argue again and he pressed down harder. "We'll have several years to take him and his whole order down. That should be time enough."

She shuddered against him, and he knew she would comply. "I agree," she confirmed it and the matter was finally settled.

"Good," he leaned back in, pushing her lightly against the nearby wall at the same moment. Pressing his lips to her left earlobe, he smirked. "Tonight, you're mine."

Hermione's whole body stiffened in his arms. "But… we need to… get married, still. We need someone to preside over the ceremony, to make it official."

Draco chuckled, licking the shell of her ear. "And who's going to do that, hmmm?" He ran his mouth over the golden skin above her pulse. "We won't need an officiate. We'll marry in the old wizarding way." He wound his left fingers through hers and stepped back, raising his wand above them. When Hermione didn't follow, he arched an eyebrow at her and frowned. "Lift your wand, Granger, and take the Vow with me."

The origin of the Unbreakable Vow was something they'd learned in Binns class as well. It had begun as a matrimonial contract (called _Enguesis_ in its original Greek), between members of Pureblood clans, to assure eugenic breeding purity and spousal fidelity back during the wizarding 'Age of Philosophy' (the 3rd century B.C. – ironically, around the same time as the European Muggle epoch of the same name). Like the Unbreakable Vow, the Marriage Vow required parties to uphold their promises; speaking falsely to any of the terms after sealing the Vow resulted in instant death for the offending spouse. Wizarding _Enguesis_, unlike its Greek Muggle counterpart of the same name, required only the two parties involved – the husband-to-be and the wife-to-be - to contract the magic terms, but it had to be done _together_ and _willingly_, otherwise the Vow would not take. In other words, Draco could not _Imperio_ Hermione in this matter; she had to want to speak the words herself for the magic to deliberately, irrevocably take.

He teetered on a knife's edge now as Granger's wand slowly rose over her wrist to cross tips with Draco's own, recovered Hawthorn rod, praying that she didn't chicken out at the last. When she gave him a barely perceptible nod, he let out a tiny exhalation of relief, but was careful not to celebrate too soon, as there were still the words to speak and the magic to cast before this was a done deal.

He'd looked up the _Enguesis_ ceremony in the Malfoy library earlier this week after returning from Gringotts, and had discovered an amazing leeway in how the Vow was spoken – which made perfect sense, as each party entering into it would have their own conditions and requirements to bring to bear into the marriage. He'd sat down that very night and carefully drafted up what they would say to each other at this moment (after all, the Vow was very specific and literal, so he'd had to word things just so to prevent one of them from accidentally being struck dead). He'd then memorized the oath, which he spoke now in a clear, concise manner:

"I, Draco Lucius Malfoy, Vow on my power as a Wizard to be your husband, Hermione Granger - in name and in body, and to faithfully endeavor to protect you and any children we may bear from harm all the days of my life. This I so solemnly swear."

A white myst wove out of the tip of his wand, curled down the length of hers, and twined about their clasped hands. He looked up to see Granger biting her lip, the top of which was coated with a sheen of light perspiration, despite the chill. Her sienna-colored eyes were wide and her pupils dilated in real, unadulterated fear, with too much white showing. Her breathing had accelerated, and against his thumb, he could feel her pulse slamming through her veins. For just a second, Draco felt guilty for forcing himself on her. It wasn't enough of a feeling to make him set her free – no, definitely not that. He'd waited too long for her, and like Blaise, he'd determined that they were in this now together, to the bitter end. But the pang in his heart told him that she didn't really want this, that she wouldn't be standing here doing this now if she didn't need the information he could provide, and that caused him some small measure of pain.

"Repeat after me," he told her, knowing she didn't know the ritual. "I, Hermione Granger…"

She licked her lips, swallowed hard and opened her mouth. "I, Hermione Jean Granger…"

His lips quirked in amusement. Jean, hmmm? Interesting. "Vow on my power as a Witch…"

"Vow on my power as a Witch…"

So far, so good. "To be your wife, Draco Lucius Malfoy - in name and in body…"

Here she paused, shut her eyes, and her trembling increased. "To… to be your wife… Draco Lucius Malfoy - in name and… in… body…"

That she stumbled over the last part made him realize that she was more terrified of what they were going to do in bed than in the idea that she was taking his name as her own. That worried him some. He knew she'd enjoyed what they'd done that one time; she'd orgasmed twice under him, for Merlin's sake! And he knew she still felt some fascination for him from her reaction to his nearness earlier. His ire grew as his insecurities did likewise, so he marched onward, determined now more than ever to finish this and make her his. "And to faithfully endeavor to protect you and any children we may bear from harm all the days of my life."

"And to faithfully endeavor to protect you and any children we may bear from harm all the days of my life."

That last part seemed to come easier for her. But then again, she'd told him a few times now that saving him was something she had wanted to do all along. If that was the case, then giving her body to him again shouldn't be that reprehensible, right? If she was willing to die for him, then why was fucking him so much scarier? His ego took the hit with little grace.

"This I so solemnly swear," she finished on her own without prompting, obviously remembering that part from his Vow.

Her magic wove around his like a snake writhing around its partner during the mating dance, and when the ends finally connected, there was a click in Draco's skull, followed by a warm, tingling rush through his body as the Vow took. It had felt very similar to the Unbreakable Vow he'd made with Blaise so long ago, and yet there was something deeper to this connection, something more primal, hungry. His whole body flushed with desire and need, and before he could stop himself, he was pressing up against her again. Once more, with his face only centimeters away, he stared at Hermione, willing her permission for a kiss.

It was just as it had been their first time, only now, her arms weren't around him; one hand was pressed to his, the other held her wand and gripped his hip at the same time.

She nodded, and he touched down softly on her mouth…

Green sparks shot out of the tip of his wand, jolting them both into a state of alarm. With a regretful sigh, Draco let Hermione go, feeling the moment his hand left hers as a physical tug against his heart. The Vow, it seemed, was firmly in place. He made his way to the French doors and unlocked and opened them. Far off, near the Manor gates, green sparks continued to burn. Draco dropped the wards, and in a moment, Blaise, Daphne and Astoria Side-long Apparated in together. He reset the protection spells around his home, and hurried them all into his bedroom, careful to check first that no other energy signatures had passed over the boundaries of his home with a quick flick of his wand and a 'brushing touch' to the familiar repelling hexes and curses that bordered the Malfoy ancestral estate. All was clear.

When he locked the balcony doors behind him once more, he noted Hermione warily staring at the three interlopers, obviously confused. "Blaise Zabini, Daphne Greengrass, and her sister Astoria," he introduced with a wave towards each person. He turned to his friends and stepped to Hermione's side. "My wife, Hermione Granger."

Four sets of jaws dropped, all for obviously different reasons.

It was his new wife who spoke first. "Malfoy, who are these people?" she demanded, clearly angry.

He tossed a grin at her, trying for unflappable himself. "Defectors, of course."

She blinked, processing it all. "You've been _recruiting_?" she asked, incredulous.

He shrugged. "Not intentionally, no. But your little resistance movement just got a bonus in four wizards for the price of one." He put his arm around her waist and smirked down at her. "Not bad for a night's work, Granger."

Gazing up into his eyes, his new consort frowned. "How do I know I can trust them?"

"I'm bonded to Drake," Blaise piped up finally in his deep baritone. "We took the Unbreakable Vow to each other for loyalty years ago. I cannot betray his trust under pain of death."

Daphne cleared her throat, holding fast to Zabini's arm like it was her only lifeline. "I've taken an Unbreakable Vow not to betray Blaise," she admitted, shyly looking to the floor, a small blush staining her cheeks. "And Astoria's taken one to me tonight not to betray my trust."

Hermione's eyes were hawkish, very carefully measuring the three former Slytherins before her. Draco could almost smell the oil burning as the wheels turned 'round and 'round in that head of hers. After long, silent minutes, she turned to him. "So, whether I accept them or not is a question of whether I trust _you_," she pointed out. "Since you're the linch pin to this train of secrecy."

Turning her in his arms, Draco smirked down at her. "'To faithfully endeavor to protect you and any children we may bear from harm all the days of my life,'" he reminded her. "No going back now, Granger."

Through narrowed, dark eyes, she studied him, and finally nodded.

"Why the delay?" he turned his attention to Daphne.

The pretty blonde threw him an apologetic grimace. "We had to wait for our parents to leave for their late night dinner party with the Parkinsons," she explained. "And it took longer than I expected to pack up our things." She indicated the two backpacks that Astoria held onto. "We hurried as best as we could without alerting mother and father."

He nodded, trading a look with Blaise. "Your responsibility, both of them," he reminded his friend. Zabini just nodded and rolled his eyes as if to say, "That was obvious."

"We're on a tight deadline," Granger told him, checking a Muggle watch on her wrist. "So, collect what you'll be taking with you, because we're not going to be coming back any time soon. Maybe not ever," she informed him, moving back out of his hold. She reached into an inner pocket of her robs and pulled out five medium-sized, drawstring bags and passed three of them to him. "You can fit a lot in these. They have Undetectable Extension Charms on them. Throw in your clothes, and all the bedding, toiletries, money, whatever trinkets you think you wouldn't mind selling, and your personal belongings that you want to keep." She waggled the other two bags. "These, I'm taking down to the kitchens to raid the cupboards, if you don't mind. We're a little short on food and essentials where we're at right now, since we just moved in a few days ago."

Draco called Moppy to them. The little house-elf appeared in a crack of rifting sound, and when instructed by him, led Hermione down to the kitchens. Before she left, Hermione turned back. "We don't have much time. We need to leave here soon, so please be quick about it."

With the help of his three former Housemates, Draco managed to shrink the contents of his wardrobe and all of the items he wanted to take with him, and fit them into two of the bags. He then went on alone to his father's study to extract liquor from the cabinets, and then the hidden vault behind his parents' back closet wall in their bedroom to pull out what money he thought they may need. He did not touch his mother's jewels, except to take his grandmother Malfoy's engagement ring, which was part of his personal inheritance, meant for his spouse. He would give it to Hermione later, as it was now rightfully hers.

He took one last stroll around the house to make sure everything was in order. He spoke to several portraits – specifically, those he'd talked to most often as a young child or in recent days and who would be sympathetic to his flight. "I will keep the wards in place when I leave," he promised his grandmother, Madeline Malfoy, whose portrait hung in one of the lesser used bedrooms in the East Wing of the house, banished there by his father, who kept it around only for aesthetics. "That way, you all will be safe for when my parents return. What they do with you then…" He left the thought unfinished, frowning.

"This cannot be an easy decision for you," the beautiful, aristocratic blonde witch replied, her face clearly saddened. "I am so very sorry for you, Draco."

He sighed. His father's mother was the one person he could truly let himself open to. "I wish-" he began, stopped himself, but decided to blunder on, seeing as no one was nearby to overhear. "I wish none of this had ever happened, Maddy," he confessed, using the nickname his grandmother insisted upon back when he was eight-years old and a very lonely, single child being brought up in a big, empty house, talking to the portraits for company. "I wish Potter had defeated the Dark Lord. I wish my parents were better people. I wish I'd taken Granger's offer years ago." He ran a pale hand through his bangs, brushing them out of his eyes again. His tone and face were resigned. "I'm probably going to die for her – Hermione, I mean. There probably won't be an heir." He looked up into his ancestor's beautiful blue-grey eyes and frowned. "I'm sorry."

Maddy smiled sadly at him. "Draco, please try to stay alive and come back. I should very much like to see you again, heir or no. You are the son I'd always wanted." She sighed, adjusting her petite, beautifully manicured hands in her lap as she shifted slightly. "Long ago, I failed my Lucius, and he has grown to become a wicked man. And for a while, when you stopped coming to see me so much, and I heard the rumors from the other paintings, I despaired that you were nearly lost to me in such hatred and prejudice as well. I was afraid of a repeat of history."

Tears wavered before his eyes. He knew his grandmother's tale well: abused at the hands of her husband, Abraxas, and desperate to keep her only son, Lucius, from following in the man's footsteps, Madeline Malfoy had tried to take her child and flee her loveless, violent marriage one day. But her husband had caught up to her on a Sunday morning in March, and made sure she "accidentally" fell down a flight of stairs, snapping her neck. He'd then taken his only child back to the ancestral Manor and raised him with the familial pureblood legacy of bigotry and snobbery. Under a strict, harsh rule, Abraxas made his son as cruel, apathetic and uncompassionate as he was.

And look where all that evil had brought them: his family had become little better than brainwashed toadies to Lord Voldemort. The Malfoys would forever be remembered as helping to turn the world into a smoky, nauseous pile of burning corpses.

Blaise and Snape and Dumbledore and even Potter had been right all along: Voldemort and all his lackeys – even his parents - had to go.

Maddy's gentle voice drew him out of his dark thoughts. "By joining that girl's cause, you have shown me that there is hope for us, Draco," she continued with a sweet smile – the one she'd always reserved especially for him. "You are finally the heir this family has truly needed for centuries. You are a Malfoy Lord with a heart."

Touched to the core, Draco bowed deeply to his grandmother. "I hope one day to meet you again, Maddy. Thank you for your years of guidance and love. I won't forget you."

"_Adieu, mon enfant aimé_," his grandmother blew him a kiss, and then he turned on his heel and walked back down the hallway to the opposite wing, to rejoin the others.

**X~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~X**

When they were ready to go, he turned to his new wife. "Would you like to see where Potter is buried?" he asked in a respectful tone, not knowing what her reaction would be. He heard the gasps from his friends, but focused his whole attention on Hermione. Her eyes were fixed on his, filling with tears. She blinked them away and nodded once, so he took her hand and lead her through the large house, out the Conservatory door to the back gardens, and towards a corner of the property that was darkened by a copse of evergreens. Blaise and the two other women quietly walked behind; obviously harboring no love for the Dark Lord, he suspected they were interested in paying their respects to their former classmate as well.

There was only a small pile of stones gathered over a spot that was hidden behind one of the large trees, and they were half buried under the snow. The group stopped together, standing silently in the moonlight, looking down at this pathetic memorial, each lost in their own thoughts. Next to him, Hermione was so still, and her breathing was slowed, so that when she exhaled, her air appeared only as tiny puffs on the frigid air. Noting this, Draco cast a bubble warming charm about the group, worried that their breathing could be spotted.

"Oh, Harry." A small sob was ripped from Granger's throat, and tears poured in rivulets down her pale cheeks. Draco watched her struggle with her grief, recognizing that the wound in her heart caused by Potter's death had been freshly reopened by this one moment.

To his personal disgust, he admitted he was once more irrationally jealous of the love his wife obviously bore for his one-time rival, and shut his eyes against such unworthy thoughts.

Peeking over at the group of three standing off to the side to distract his musings, Draco was surprised by what he witnessed from his former housemates: Blaise looked solemn, a determined glint in his eyes, while Daphne and Astoria had arms about each other, forlorn gazes sealed to the small pile of stones. The three mourned the death of the boy they hadn't supported during his time of need, and now secretly wished they had. Theirs wasn't a sadness born from the loss of the man so much as what Potter had represented – hope.

Would people mourn him in this same way when it was his turn? He doubted it. There would be a lot of cursing and spitting instead, he was sure. Even his defection to the rebellion lacked altruism.

With his own mortality heavily weighing on him now that he was about to openly betray the Dark Lord, he felt it only appropriate to leave a final farewell over Potter's grave. This would probably be the last time he'd visit his old enemy. "_Orchidius_," he cast, and two red roses bloomed from the tip of his wand. He gave one to his wife, and then tossed his own over the gathering of stones. He said nothing, knowing his words would not be appreciated, and besides, what he felt for Scarhead was his own business and no one else's. He'd paid his respects the only way he knew how.

Hermione's hand let go of him and she knelt down, gently placing her rose over Draco's crosswise. The irony of the symbolism didn't escape him, although he doubted it had been her intention to imply that theirs was a relationship of antagonism and enmity. "I'll see you again someday, Harry," she whispered and then stood up and stepped back.

To Draco's surprise, her small fingers searched for his and tightly clasped against him, trembling. They didn't look at each other, but in his chest, his heart ran with a powerful beat.

Daphne used her wand to summon roses for her, Blaise and Astoria, handing them to her friends. The three also placed their flowers on the makeshift grave, beneath Granger's and his. No one said anything else for long minutes, and then Granger took the first steps back towards the house. He marched into the lead and wound a path towards the front of the Entry Hall, closing and locking the main door behind them. He led them down the gravel path towards the front gates of Malfoy Manor.

He lowered the wards to let them out, then released his hand from Hermione's and locked up the gate once more, fulfilling his promise to Maddy and assuring the wards were placed back up before he left for the last time. He took a final look at his home, feeling a wave of sorrow for the past. He had grown up here, and no matter how lonely or awful many of his memories of this place were, it had still been his home and he would miss it, like Hogwarts.

"Moppy, come to me," he called out, and the house-elf Apparated next to him in an instant, carrying a small, canvas bag over her thin shoulders. Despite the cold, she seemed perfectly comfortable in only her thin, magenta dress.

"Moppy is always ready to follows the Master," she greeted with a bright smile.

He looked down at his only servant and frowned. "You're free. I release you from your bonds to this family." He held out a single sock, which he pulled from an inside pocket of his pants (taken from his father's dresser), offering her the article of clothing required to assure her liberty from enslavement.

Blue eyes flared, tears gathered. The little elf ignored the present and launched her tiny body at his leg instead. "Oh, please, do not ask Moppy to leave Master's side. Moppy would be lost without Master Draco!" she positively wailed.

Now this was something he hadn't expected. He bent down on one knee in the snow, uncaring about the wet cold ruining his pants, and pried the little creature off his body and shushed her. "We talked about this, Moppy. You'll probably be killed if you come along. I don't want that."

The house-elf was pathetically crying, sniffling and trying to keep the snot from escaping her nose with one long-fingered hand. "Moppy hateses the Dark Lord," she told him in a shuddering voice. "He kills Moppy's friends and family. Moppy wants to fight with Master!"

Ironically, it was Granger who calmed them both. "Draco, let her come," she requested. "She doesn't want to be left behind. And she might even be captured and hurt worse if she has no one to protect her."

He considered her argument and sighed, worried about them being so exposed for too long. "Fine."

In a flash, the elf threw herself on first Draco and then Hermione, rubbing her disgusting, runny face all over their legs, profusely thanking them. After another few seconds to disentangle himself from the diminutive creature, he stood back up. Granger's hand slipped back into his and gave a warm squeeze.

"Thank you," she shyly smiled up at him.

Embarrassed by how uncharacteristically soft he was appearing tonight, he turned away and spoke with more anger than he intended. "She's yours to protect, Granger. I won't have her death on my head, too."

"I'll look after her," she promised.

His wife let him go again and when he turned back to watch her, she was pulling a woolen, grey scarf from one of her charmed bags. "Everyone ready?" she asked, holding out the accessory straight. "We're Porting out, so grab on." Five sets of human hands and one small set of elf hands (grabbing the trailing end) touched the coarse, hand-knit threads as instructed.

In that second, Draco felt a tingling along his spine and turned, alarm bells going off in his head, telling him that they were being watched. Too late, he saw his old mate, Goyle, standing under one of those electric street lamps down the road. The Manor's property lay just beyond the boundary of a Muggle dead-end street, outside the tarred pavement that Muggles preferred to surround their lives with, but even from the distance, Draco could see Greg's malevolent gaze glued on him.

"Shite," he muttered under his breath just as Granger cast the _Portus_ spell, and then he was tugged along with the others through a rift, that peculiar fish-hook pull in his abdomen making him slightly ill.

They landed seconds later on a hillock above some sand dunes, scarf still firmly in hand. They'd all made it, he noted with a quick glance around, pulling his wand in case they'd been followed. He doubted they would be, as Portkey travel was extremely difficult to trace, but he had seen firsthand how adept his old friend was at tracking, so he kept his guard up.

Next to him, Granger breathed a deep sigh of relief, and he turned his gaze in the direction she was looking. A cozy, multi-story house built of stone and large clam shells, firelight showing through the multitude of windows at every level, rose up in long shadow from below. Two tall chimneys, placed on either side of the roof released a cheerful waver of smoke in their direction, and as the wind carried it towards them, Draco could smell the delightful fragrance of home-cook food on the air.

"Welcome to Shell Cottage," his wife invited them with a wave of her hand. "Headquarters for the Third Order of the Phoenix."

* * *

_**TO BE CONTINUED...**_

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTES:**

_**Periculum Minimums Viridus **_**= Periculum spell from HP world, but modified for this fic. **_**Minimus**_** is Latin for 'small' and **_**Viridus**_** is Latin for 'green.'**

_**Enguesis**_** = Pronounced **_**en-GOO-ay-sis**_**. Greek word for "Betrothal." In classical Greece, the process whereby a man agrees to marry a previously unwed woman. Negotiations happen between the interested male party with the male legal guardian (**_**kurios**_**) in charge of the woman (discussions included management of a dowry, a discussion of the rituals that would be required for the wedding to be cemented, and the man's registration of his new wife in the phratry of the new husband. **

_**Adieu, mon enfant aimé **_**= French for "Goodbye, my beloved child." In this case, "Adieu" (literally, "To God") is the forever type of farewell gesture, spoken in case you expect never to see the other person again.**


	4. Chapter 4

**December 8th, 2001**

A dozen eyes – most of whom Draco recognized in one capacity or the other - stared at him and his three friends as Hermione crossed the threshold of the cottage and entered into the main living area. All of the resistance fighters had their wands out and trained on the interlopers, so he was careful to keep his hands where they could be seen and didn't make any sudden moves.

"Oh, for Godric's sake," Hermione barked in irritation, "We passed the tests. Put your wands away, you ninnies!"

She was referring to the series of three safety measures they'd had to overcome just to make it to through the door to the cottage. The first ring had been traversed by the use of the special portkey they'd ridden in on, and so the Unplottable and Muggle and Wizarding repellent-charmed cottage had been made visible to them automatically (without the Portkey, the house would look like nothing but another sand dune, according to his wife). The second was an area-of-effect ward that ringed completely around the house at a distance of ten meters. It could only be crossed if one was accompanied by someone with the Order's Mark – a tattoo of a flaming phoenix that was burned onto the skin of each Order of the Phoenix member's right forearm; it was the symbolic opposite of the Death Eaters' Dark Mark. Hermione had them all hold onto each other as she led them through the second barrier in one go, letting them know that the ward was designed to petrify instantly anyone without the proper guide. The final stop-gap was a series of three questions that his old professor, Remus Lupin, had asked on the opposite side of the spell-reinforced front door to verify their identities. The questions changed every time and were specific to the person or persons seeking entrance. Paranoia, it would seem, was one of the Order's newly adopted habits for successful survival. Draco silently approved.

There was a dark chuckle from off to their left - one he recognized immediately, despite the fact he hadn't seen, nor heard from Theodore Nott in over three years. "That's our girl all right, with temper fully intact," Ted joked, stepping forward and hugging Hermione to his chest with a familiarity that made things in Draco's guts clench. A hot wave of jealousy surged through him as he recognized the truth in that instant: his wife _had_ been fucking Nott, and not just casually, it seemed. It was right there, in the other man's face how much he was in love with the witch. "Glad you're safe, Granger," the taller wizard murmured.

Clearly uncomfortable with the gesture, Hermione backed out of the hold, stepping to Draco's side. He reached for her hand, tightly gripping it to remind her who she belonged to. "Actually, she's a Malfoy now," he grated between clenched teeth, looking down into her pinking face with irritation. "Isn't that right, _baby_?"

There was a collective gasp from the group, and Ted stepped back, his face blanching, his mouth opened in shock.

So, she _hadn't_ told them what she'd agreed to before leaving here to go to the Manor. Why the bloody hell not? Was she embarrassed or something?

Clearing her throat, she pulled her hand from his grasp and waved at him and his three friends. "Everyone, I've brought the defector – well, _defectors_ – like I said I would." She turned to Blaise, Daphne, Astoria and Moppy and introduced them. She saved Draco for last, presenting him as her new husband. Silence reigned supreme for a long, awkward minute. Draco's eyes took in every face, searching for intention. On less than half of them did he spy resigned acceptance; the others remained skeptical and wary. It was Theodore Nott who exploded the quiet.

"You're lying!" the dark-haired wizard shouted, his face crimson with fury. "Tell me you're lying, Hermione! There's no way you married _him_." He pointed accusatorily at Draco, and in that moment, he knew whatever friendship he and Nott had once harbored as kids back in school had been cast aside. "You couldn't have!"

Draco sneered. "Actually, she did, Ted. We married in the ancient wizarding way, with the Vow and our wands."

"You're talking about Enguesis," Lupin breathed in awe, his eyes wide, as shocked as everyone else. "But that's-"

"Completely legal," Draco finished, squashing any argument along those lines. "And permanently binding." He smirked at the look of horror on his former professor's face. "'Till death do us part."

Nott was shaking his head in denial, his face a mask of pain. "No, tell me you're lying," he whispered, his voice laced with pain. "Hermione, honey..."

He closed his mouth when Granger raised sorrowful eyes to his, and Draco flinched watching the fat tears roll down her cheeks. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

Those two words, the regret in her eyes - they were like a scorching knife thrust deep into Draco's stomach. It was as he'd suspected: his wife hadn't really wanted him after all. She'd only married him because she critically needed the information stored in his head about the enemy camp and its plans. _Needs must when the Devil drives_, or so the old saying went… and from the look on Ted's face, Draco was the indisputable King of Hell.

Resentment and fury replaced shock and sadness across Nott's features, and he turned hate-filled eyes on Draco. There was the promise of a reckoning in those dark, glittering orbs that stared at him from under delicately arched brows - a vow of blood-thirsting vengeance. Undaunted, as he knew that no one on Earth could scare him now except Voldemort (not even Lucius, who had always terrified the child he had been), Draco stared back with equal bitterness. Ted had touched Hermione; he knew her curves, her taste, her scent. That fact alone had strained the bonds of whatever they had shared previously, even before a single utterance had been made tonight.

He staked his claim, openly, without reservation or fear, refusing to back down as he loosed his hands from his wife's and wrapped his arm about her waist instead, pulling her back against his chest. _She's mine_, he projected with his mind straight into Nott's frontal lobe, using mind magic. It was a difficult thing to accomplish, even with his wand nearby, and it left him with a throb in the front of his skull, much like sipping on something extremely cold too fast, but Draco refused to give any indication of his discomfort, meeting Ted's rage head-on.

Having received the message loud and clear, the taller wizard actually snarled like an animal, and curled his lip upward, baring teeth.

"Theo, please," Hermione pleaded, trying to pry Draco's arms from around her without success. Her attempts only angered him, so he latched on extra tight, refusing to give her any lead. "Don't make this harder than it already is."

It felt like an axe had just been imbedded in Draco's chest at her words. She _really_ didn't want him - not even a little bit. He'd been fooling himself back at the Manor when he'd thought... Gods, he was such a _fucking_ idiot.

But he had his pride to consider now that an entire room full of people was listening in. No way was he going to appear wounded by Hermione's rejection in front of these wankers. Instead, he tilted his chin up and gave an arrogant, triumphant smirk, as if he were the winner in this contest, and that's all that mattered to him.

Ted's eyes narrowed, he clamped his lips together, and turned on his heel to take up a spot against the far wall, behind the crowd and out of direct line of sight. He'd retreated... for now. But Draco knew his former friend's vindictiveness had no bounds; Nott had learned well from his old man's beatings as a child how to take punishment, and later met out his own particular, nasty brand of payback. Clearly, this was far from over between them.

With disgust, he dropped his arms from around his wife's waist and stepped back, trying to reclaim his shredded pride from off the floor. Damn Hermione Granger... er, Hermione _Malfoy_! She'd always unmanned him, hadn't she?

Turning away to avoid giving too much of his thoughts up, his gaze strayed to Remus Lupin's once more, lingering when he caught the man's light brown-grey eyes measuring him up. There was an unasked, protracted question in their depths that prickled at Draco's internal alarms. What exactly was his former professor searching for when he glanced at him?

The older man's fathomless gaze turned on the smallest member of the new group, and a kindly smile lit up the haggard features of his former professor. "Moppy, was it?" Draco's house-elf clung to his leg, hiding behind it and nodded. "It's nice to meet you."

Moppy's floppy ears were plastered back to her skull as she turned big soulful, blue eyes up at Draco. He nodded permission for her to reply. "Moppy is… is happy to serves, sir," she intoned, turning back to Lupin.

Remus leaned forward, his elbows on his knees and gave Moppy his most charming face. "Yes, well, we're all happy to have you here, Moppy. Perhaps you'd like to go back to the kitchens to meet our resident house-elf, Dobby? I'm sure he'd love to make your acquaintance."

At the mention of Dobby, Moppy's ears stood straight up, her eyes bugged even further than normal, and her long nose began twitching as a smile adorned her ugly, little face. "Hero Dobby is heres, sir? Truly?" For the first time in years, Moppy seemed _extremely_ animated. It surprised Draco more than when she'd thrown herself at his mercy at the gates of his home just an hour before, begging to join him on this adventure instead of being freed.

Lupin's grin wound up his face as he traded an amused look with Hermione. "A hero is he?"

Moppy came out from behind Draco's legs, forgetting her earlier trepidation, excitedly clasping her hands in front of her. "Oh, yes, sir! Hero Dobby is known to all house elves everywheres, sir. He foughts against the Bad Lord's meanies for Master Harry Potter!" Her ears lowered again. "But, sir, we thoughts Hero Dobby was dead."

Hermione scrunched down on her knees, gently touching Moppy's shoulder, her tone equally as tender. "Moppy, Dobby didn't die from Bellatrix's knife. He was seriously hurt, and it's taken a _very_ long time for him to recover, but he didn't die." She pointed to a room just off the main area. "He's through that door if you want to say hello."

In a very human gesture, Moppy bit her red bottom lip and twisted her fingers in nervous indecisiveness. "Do you think I look pretties enough to meets Hero Dobby, Mistress?" she tentatively asked, and there was amused chuckling about the room, with at least one female voice murmuring, "How cute!" Moppy's greyish-pale skin blushed a bright red and she fretfully twisted the ends of her dress. Turning to look up at Draco she blinked bright, shimmering eyes at him. "Master, Moppy doesn't wants to leaves you, but… can Moppy just go greets Hero Dobby?"

Draco nodded. "Feel free."

That was definitely the wrong turn of phrase to use. With a sharp sob, Moppy threw herself on his leg again, crying her eyes out once more. "Oh, please don't frees us, Master! Please don't! Master Draco is Moppy's only family! He treats us so good and we don't wants to leaves him!"

With a tired sigh, Draco tried again. "Moppy, stop, listen to Master." Instantly, the house-elf's wailing ceased and she looked up at him expectantly. "I meant, you can come and go as you please without Master's permission while we're here," he explained. "If you want to go see Dobby, by all means, do so."

Wiping a hand across her snotty nose, Moppy smiled up at him again. "Oh, thank yous, Master!" She hugged his leg for a third time, and Draco felt his face light up in embarrassment over the scene she was creating. "Master Draco is always _so_ _goods_ to Moppy!" She stepped away from him as if she hadn't just almost had a major melt down, her emotional recovery amazing as she bounced about and straightened her dress, making her outfit presentable. "Now, if Master needs anythings from Moppy…"

Draco waved her off, trying to not appear like a compassionate fool in front of all of these people. "Yes, I'll call on you. Go."

With a snap of her fingers, Moppy poofed away.

There were a few more moments of strained silence after the elf's departure, as if the strange scene that had just unfolded before them all was a revealing window into Draco Malfoy's real personality. The curious eyes reweighing him now were even more uncomfortable than Moppy's earlier fawning.

Self-preservation had Draco drawing that curtain of aristocratic snobbishness around himself once more; he'd always found that feigning an arrogant boredom was a solid trick for keeping prying, nosey observers at bay. He perfected the look once again for his "audience," refusing to have any of them thinking him a nancy boy just because he chose not to kick around his servant. He might not be willing to harm Moppy, but he sure as hell wouldn't have the same compulsion for any being he didn't consider within his inner circle. He'd killed often enough before for something as small as a thinly veiled sneer, and his conscience certainly wasn't having an attack of morals at the moment.

It was Lupin who broke the stalemate again. "Mr. Longbottom, could you see our rather exhausted-looking guests are made comfortable?" the man asked, turning his head only slightly over his shoulder to address one of the Order members in the back.

Draco's eyes roamed towards the tall figure of the young man moving through the thin crowd, walking towards them. In an instant, he recognized that this was not the Neville Longbottom he'd tormented in school. Gone was the boy's baby fat innocence, and disappeared was his stammering, bumbling shyness. The man striding forward was shrouded in darkness. Cloaked head to toe in the darkest black, carrying some sort of thorny whip in one hand, his wand in the other, Longbottom exuded a killer's smooth confidence. Flat, dispassionate eyes held Draco's stare without flinching, and in the hard angles of his features, there lay the lingering proof of a man who had survived nightmarish horrors. The scar roaming down the whole of the left side of his face - starting over his brow, angling straight down his cheek to terminate at the corner of his lip - only heightened the effect. The former Gryffindor tool took in Draco in a roving glance and narrowed his eyes in mistrust. "This way," he indicated the stairway leading up in a low, hissing voice and a jerk of his head, careful not to present his back to them at any time.

A tired Blaise, Daphne and Astoria troupe headed in the direction indicated automatically without question, but Draco hung back, not wanting to let Hermione out of his sight for an instant. He didn't trust her now, knowing that she'd deceived by omission not only these – her closest friends – but him as well.

Longbottom gave him a vicious smirk, as if he knew something Draco did not, then turned away and followed the others, taking the stairs two at a time on quick, assured feet. The change in the boy he'd once bullied so horribly was unexpected… and disquieting. This war really had driven the whole world mad, hadn't it?

"Draco, you should go, too," his wife suggested, having regained her height once Moppy had disappeared. Her face had been wiped of its earlier tears as well, he noted.

He shook his head. "Where you go, I go, _darling_," he coldly replied, regaining his perspective on the situation. "Unless, that is, you're ready for bed?" He emphasized the last word and gave her a mocking, knowing look.

Looking down at the floor, she shook her head. "Debriefing," she summed up her excuse in one word.

"Think I'll stay, too," he decided on the fly. "Just in case there are any… questions."

He knew she understood what he was implying: that he didn't trust her further than he could toss her. It bothered him that he couldn't, in fact, for if there had been one thing he could count on in this insensible, corpse-riddled world - aside from the surety of his own violent death – it was that Hermione Granger had always been a trustworthy woman. Apparently, that naïve belief no longer held true, and that knowledge tasted like bitter acid in his mouth. Therefore, there was no way he was going to let her out of his sight if he could help it – especially since he was beginning to suspect that he'd been brought here for more than just the information in his head. Lupin's and Longbottom's reactions to him were quite suspicious.

People began moving into the next room, and Hermione made to follow. Silently, Draco walked at her back, his gaze flickering to Ted's, noting the resentful, suspicious vehemence in the former Slytherin's shimmering, grey-green orbs. Refusing to be cowed, Draco stared back until he was past the man, his instincts and experience telling him that Nott wouldn't try anything in Granger's presence. When he sat down at a large dining table at his wife's left, he noted that she sat at the head, and that almost everyone else deferred to her.

It occurred to Draco then that his wife was, in fact, one of the leaders of the Third Order of the Phoenix.

**X~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~X**

**December 9th, 2001**

It was past one in the morning, and Draco wasn't in the least bit tired. Just the opposite in fact; he was amped, having caught his second wind.

Following Hermione up the stairs to the third floor, corner bedroom – the room allotted for her use and unshared, unlike the other rooms in the house – he waited until the door closed behind them and he'd cast a silencing and privacy charm around the whole of the area before he spoke.

"Interesting meeting, _kitten_," he smirked, spitefully tormenting her with loving nicknames, sick in his guts that he was so torn up over her duplicity. It had been obvious every time he caught her and Ted sharing a moment during the debriefing that she was harboring terrible guilt over her sham marriage to Draco, probably wishing for nothing more than to annul it immediately. _Tough luck, little bird_, he thought. _You're stuck with me for all time_.

Hermione stopped on her way across the room to the large oaken armoire and just stared at him. "You're angry with me," she correctly guessed. "About Theo."

Draco sniffed around a well-rehearsed smirk. "What could I possibly be angry about, _muffin_? That you've been fucking my former friend, or that you regret marrying me because you won't be able to anymore?"

She tsk'd in displeasure. "You're disgusting, Malfoy. No, I'm not sleeping with him."

He laughed with bitter amusement. "Not anymore, anyway."

Turning on him in anger, she ran her hand through her long, wind-tangled tresses. "You know, I don't recall anything in that Vow about having to maintain sole fidelity to you."

If Draco thought he was furious before, it was nothing to the rage that boiled through him at her implied threat. In a flash of movement, he was across the room and had her shoved against the dresser. His breathing was rough, raspy as he leaned in, baring his teeth. "Touch him again in that way and I'll kill him."

Shoving against him, Hermione tried to put space between them, but Draco refused to give her a centimeter, pressing the full length and weight of his body onto her with a snarl in her face.

"How _dare_ you!" she seethed. "You don't own me, Malfoy! Let me go!"

He grabbed her upper arms and shook her. "I beg to differ, _dove_. According to custom, I own you now. Every little bit of you. You're my wife, 'in name _and_ in body.' If you failed to note that important stipulation in the Vow, that's hardly my problem."

"Could you _be_ any more condescending?" she scowled at him. "I remember exactly what I promised."

Narrowing his eyes, he stared into her rebellious, dark brown gaze. "Good, then there's no further reason to talk." With that, he slammed his mouth down on hers, taking their first kiss in over three and a half years without her consent and in anger.

He knew this was a _really_ bad idea, but he was just so furious with her. He'd thought of no other woman with such obsessive need in the years since they'd parted ways; Hermione had consumed his thoughts – dangerously so – even when he'd thought her dead and gone (he suspected the Dark Lord knew this, too, which was why the fucker was after her so badly). He'd hoped when Hermione had appeared in his room last week and then again earlier tonight when they'd almost kissed, that perhaps she had some honest affection for him, as he did for her. Clearly, he'd been mistaken.

She _did_ harbor such sentiment for Ted, though. His one-time friend had apparently captured his little Gryffindor's fancy. That knowledge… _hurt_.

Draco hated to admit it, but the sharp talons of monstrous jealousy had sunk into his heart, piercing and scoring him deep with every glance she'd made in Nott's direction tonight. He now acted on that instinctual fear to force his indelible claim upon her - so she'd never again crave Ted, only _him,_ her lawful husband - as was proper.

He dragged Hermione over to the bed and dropped them both down on it by catching her knee from behind and tipping her back, using gravity's natural force to land her in the middle, her legs dangling off the edge. She fought him, of course; he hadn't expected an easy capitulation under the circumstances. But of the two, he was unquestionably the stronger. Easily pinning her wrists to the firm bedding beside her ears, using his weight as leverage, he kept her forcibly down as his mouth took its pleasure, avoiding her teeth as she attempted to bite him.

After several minutes of very unsatisfactory results, he pulled his head back and licked his bloodied bottom lip. "Bite me again like that and I'll punish you, _angel_," he pledged.

"Don't do this, Draco," she fearfully panted, still trying to free her tiny wrists from his bigger hands without success. "I'll hate you if you do."

He sneered. "You already hate me, _honey_. You always have. Nothing's going to change that now."

Just like that, she stopped struggling and stared up at him with disappointment. "That's not true," she denied. "When we were much younger, yes, I wished you hexed into a slug on more than a few occasions - but only because you were such an unbelievable git to me and my friends! But I gave you my virginity! You don't honestly think I'd impart something that important to you without some kind of feeling behind it?" She sighed in disgust. "What kind of slag do you take me for, Draco?"

He narrowed his eyes, considering how best to reply. In his ears, his blood roared as his pulse sped up. Had she just confessed to caring for him? "What… kind of feeling?" he pressed, needing to know, dreading that he dared to hope.

Hermione opened her mouth, but immediately shut it again, pursing her lips together and measuring him carefully for long seconds. Finally, she sighed. "Certainly, it was more feeling than you had for me that day," she stated, opting to take the safe route and not directly answer. "It may not have been 'just sex' for you, as you stated, but what we did wasn't enough to move your heart or anything even remotely close."

Now it was Draco's turn to keep his mouth shut. Fuck, he wasn't even sure how to reply to that.

Hermione blinked, and raised an eyebrow in curiosity. "Did it?"

He decided to pull a dodge and deflect, as his Slytherin training had adequately instructed him to do when faced with a difficult question for which he wasn't prepared to answer. "Do you want me?" Sex was a safer topic, as it was a 'yes' or 'no' sort of thing, motivated by physical desire, not emotional connection.

A sweet, pink blush worked its way over her cheeks and down her neck, dipping into the cleavage he had a tantalizing glimpse of as her shirt's collar was stretched down by their positioning. Granger turned her head to the side and stared at the headboard, refusing to look him in the eye. "Does it honestly matter?"

Gritting his teeth, Draco almost blew his top. Did it matter whether she truly wanted him or not - what the fuck kind of question was that? Of course it mattered! He wanted her to burn for him as much as he did for her. That she seemed not to be so moved stung his pride.

He bit back in the only way he knew how: feigning cold indifference. "Not really."

His wife let out a sad, mocking sniff at that response. "Then I guess you'd better just get this over with. I'm tired and have a long day tomorrow already planned." Noting his lack of immediate action and silence to her outrageous proposal, she took a deep breath and let it out in one slow release. "Tell you what, Draco, I'll make it easy for you and not struggle," she dryly commented. "I'll just lie here and take one for England, since my willing participation doesn't seem to be a factor here. How does that sound?"

His temper hit the roof. How was it that Hermione Granger – _Malfoy_, he corrected himself again - always ran circles around him, leaving him in knots, feeling powerless and unsure? How had he allowed her to get so infuriatingly beneath his skin, both when they'd been younger and now, all these years later? With a vicious profanity uttered under his breath, he jerked back, prepared to let her go and drop the whole thing for the night, annoyed to the point where he was starting to lose his erection.

She did the unforgivable then: she turned her head and looked at him again dead-on… and taunted him. "What's the matter, Malfoy? Too big a job for you?"

Her provoking barb drove him over the edge. With a growl, he shoved his hips intimately against hers, letting her feel his stiff sex, which had flooded again with blood as his renewed fury raged through his veins. "Is this what you want?" he demanded, tightening his grip on her wrists, knowing he was bruising her. "You want me to violently take you?"

She looked down at where their bodies contacted. "Again, does it honestly matter to you what I want?"

"Yes, all right? It does!" he shouted in her face, fuming mad. "_It fucking __matters__!_"

Cautiously, she locked her dark cinnamon gaze onto his and asked the one question that he knew would someday be the ruin of him: "Why?"

"Because-" he growled with frustration. "Because you're my wife!"

"So?" she shrugged, seemingly apathetic to the whole idea of them being married. As if the importance of her now being Mrs. Draco Malfoy meant nothing to her at all – that _he_ meant nothing to her but a means to an end. "What's a title change have to do with the price of tea at market?"

He lost it then. He truly and honestly flipped out, his self-control snapping into pieces as his temper had finally hit the ceiling, exploding outwards in a way that had only previously been accomplished by the likes of Harry _wanking _Potter.

"Okay, fine. Don't forget that you asked for this, though, _sweetheart_," he snarled and letting her wrists go, Draco ripped at her pants, tearing the buttons off and pulling the zipper down. Yanking the unflattering trousers off her waist, he took her black cotton knickers along with them in his haste, leaving both articles of clothes dangling from one petite ankle without care. Calling his wand to hand, he cast the Contraceptive Charm over her belly in at least some show of respect for her earlier wishes, and when complete, he tossed the infernal staff of wood to the floor without a second thought.

He revealed his penis with hassled, shaking hands next, and when his fully erect and incredibly sensitive cock was completely free of its fetters, he shoved her legs wide, aligned their bodies up, and drove into her hard. With exquisite satisfaction, her narrow canal parted in a rush of smooth, warm, liquid silk, her sopping wet channel making the passage easy and _extremely_ pleasurable.

She cried out and bowed her back in response to his breaching of her body once more. "Oh... _yes!_"

When he was finally, fully embedded to the hilt in her, only then did Draco realize that his little wife was _very_ aroused. With that came the realization that she had goaded him into this rough sex on purpose. She _had _wanted him!

Again, that infernal question lingered: _Why?_ Uncertainty bounced around in Draco's head as he rested inside of her unmoving, hovering on the brink of indecision. They shouldn't do it like this, under these pretenses. He should pull out now. They'd both regret coming together like this later.

Despite his misgivings, his starved, squandered body came fully awake for the first time in years when he felt her internal muscles contracting about him as he lingered, making all his senses hyper-aware. She was so soft, so tight, and she fit him so _fucking_ perfectly…

With a shuddering groan, he dropped all his defenses and doubts, and simply succumbed to his need to have her again.

Starting off strong, he pounded his wife's snug, sweet pussy with long, thick strokes that sunk deep, maintaining a death grip on the bed's blankets to anchor his upper body in place as he leaned over her to watch her expression. To his heart's amazed delight, his tenacious lover met him thrust for thrust from the get-go with a matching desire; clearly Hermione had abandoned her earlier resolve to be a non-participant in this seduction, giving herself over to the act with an equal enthusiasm.

There were no soft words of love or devotion between them as they met and retreated in sync. No, this was straight-up sweaty, hot, drenching sex whose genesis could be traced to the bundle of unrefined, neglected feelings that had been fostered between them that afternoon in the Room of Requirement so long ago. This moment had been years in the making, waiting, fantasizing.

Draco shut his eyes, willing himself into the moment's torturous sensations, moaning so loudly that he was sure they could hear him on the other side of the house, even with the Silencing Charm firmly in place around their room. The sting of Hermione's sharp, rounded fingernails digging into his upper arms seconds later forced his attention back to the wantonly flushed face of his beautiful, maddening wife, however. He was then unexpectedly pulled in closer with a sudden, acute ferocity that had him quaking from head to toe, and as her arms wrapped about his neck. Into his ear, Hermione mewled with cajoling, baited breath for him to go faster and to take her harder. Draco nearly burst through his skin with joy, hearing the proof of her desire for him from her own lips.

Bolstered by his partner's zeal, as well as forcibly compelled by the ancient sorcery of the Vow he'd taken earlier, he did as bade, enslaved by his witch's whim, helpless but to give her all she demanded and more. He sped up his pace and the force of his surging hips, shuttling into her with a wild, abandoned rhythm.

The sound of his upper thighs slapping against the backs of hers, and of her entreating gasps and moans were harmonized by the creaking of the bed springs – which only encouraged them both towards louder and raunchier exclamatory expressions to persuade and stimulate each other. Together, they flew out of control, clinging to each other with desperation, unable to deny any longer that, in at least _this_, they were wholly compatible.

Scraping his teeth across his wife's bottom lip, Draco latched on and kissed her with his heart's pulse in his mouth, gliding them with forceful surges into the center of the mattress, away from the edge, smoothing their bodies across the wrinkling covers until he lay fully atop her.

"_Oh, gods,_ Draco!" she whimpered, her tiny hands dipping over his waist to reach around and grab his backside, pulling him in tighter. "Yes, do me like that," she begged, as his arse flexed with each grinding drive into her luscious, honeyed hole, rubbing against the top of her very sensitive cleft at the same time with his lower abdomen. Her gasps grew louder, more intense, her breathing became a heavy series of pants through her nose as she ate at his mouth. Her soft thighs constricted and went firmly taut as she mounted her pleasure, bringing him right along with her.

Shoving his right arm under Hermione's shoulders, leaning his weight on his elbow and pulling her head off the bed to cradle in his palm, Draco fisted a handful of her warm, brown-gold curls and pulled her in closer as his mouth greedily drank of her flavor, capturing her wild moans. The flavor of the tea she'd been sipping during the meeting – a fruity herbal of cinnamon and apples – intoxicated his taste buds as he dipped his tongue into the cavern of her mouth in a pulsing to match his pistoning hips. Slytherin's soul, she tasted _wonderful_! Her beautiful, pure aura shined once again behind his closed eyelids like the summer sun, exposing him, drawing him in at the same time as it burned his heart up.

A throbbing, aching wave of pure bliss abruptly slammed into Draco, hollowing his gut, causing his sac below to tighten, and shooting electricity into the back of his brain. It happened at the exact same moment that his wife's lower body squeezed around his pulsating shaft and she arched her spine high off the bed, crying out his name. Hearing her plea for him to join her, and feeling her rippling, spasming orgasm suckling his cock, he was dragged over the edge in an explosion of molten fire. White, searing shards of ecstasy imprinted upon the back of his retinas, curved his back and wrenched from his lips the prayer of Hermione's name.

No other experience in the whole of his life had so moved Draco as this one had, not even their first coupling, when they'd both lost their innocence to the other. And yet, he realized as he came down from the glowing high moments after he'd spilled every last drop of his seed into her, collapsing into the softness of her pale shoulder, that they had done this for all the wrong reasons and in an unsuitable way. They'd both been angry, for one. Two, he hadn't even gotten them fully naked. He hadn't caressed her body as he'd dreamed of doing, hadn't tasted her nipples or her sacred spot between her legs, as he'd fantasized, and hadn't kissed her properly before they'd started. And three, having the best sex ever didn't resolve anything between them, really – like her feelings for Theo, or why she married him to begin with, or what this group of insurgents expected from him, or why she'd provoked him into taking her this way.

_Fuck_, he thought with regret. Draco knew he may have been a bad man in this life, but he'd drawn the line at rape, refusing to hurt any woman in such a fashion, despite some of his fellow Death Eaters' more disgusting proclivities. But tonight, he'd practically forced himself on Hermione, hadn't he? He'd been the one to initiate their first kiss, and to throw her down on the bed, and to rip her pants from her legs.

_Shite!_

He rolled off of her, flopping onto his back, staring up at the ceiling, feeling sticky and sweaty and sunken inside. "Why?" he managed to croak out. "This could have been… I didn't want…" He shut his eyes with the ache of regret. "Not like this," he muttered with a sigh.

Next to him, his wife was silent as she flipped onto her side, her back to him, and curled up into a fetal position. "I'm sorry to disappoint you," she finally mumbled, and he could hear the tears she struggled to hold back in the quivering of her tone.

Rubbing a hand over his eyes, he sighed. "You didn't. It was _amazing_, Grang… Hermione. The best I've ever had. That's not what bothers me about it."

She sniffled. "What, then?"

He kept his lids shut and swallowed his shame. "Sex and anger don't mix well."

She huffed out a mocking laugh. "Which brings us full circle in this discussion, Draco. Why are you angry about Theo and me? What do you care if he and I had a history? I don't resent any of your past relationships with women."

Son of a bitch, they weren't having this fight over again, and he was _not_ discussing any other women with her - not after what they'd just done. He especially didn't want to think of Ted at a time like this, with sleep pulling at him now that he'd ejaculated and his mind fuzzing around the edges.

Besides, it was probably close to two-thirty in the morning now, and he was exhausted. He'd planned on being in attendance for the nine-thirty breakfast meeting the Order members had agreed upon at the end of their earlier debrief, and he needed to get some solid sleep if he was to be at his best then.

Sitting up, he decided to shuck the rest of his clothes, throwing them haphazardly onto the floor, opting to sleep in the nude, refusing to look at his wife or answer her.

The bed shifted as Hermione turned over to watch him, and he felt her assessing him. He let her get a good, long look at his naked body, unashamed to show off how much he'd changed since she'd last seen him in the buff, knowing that he'd taken excellent care of himself over the intervening years (he and Blaise had a regular work out regime they followed, as one never knew when good cardio or physical strength would be required over magical means of defense, especially with Greyback and his wolves hanging about). He didn't show off by flexing, but he could feel her hot stare as his muscles rippled under his skin with his movements.

"You don't have to be concerned, you know," she interjected, breaking the calm. "I'm not planning on cheating with Theo. And for the record, I _was_ seeing him for almost six months, up until three months ago, when I-" She paused as he turned and pulled the covers back on the bed, scooting under them. "I cared for him, but I wasn't-" She seemed to stammer over the truth. "I couldn't give him what he wanted. So, I ended it."

Draco didn't want to, but he couldn't help but consider her words. What exactly was she trying to tell him? That she wasn't in love with Theodore Nott? "Obviously, he doesn't agree it's over between you two," he disputed around a yawn, leaning back into a soft pillow.

Hermione shrugged. "A person can't help how they feel."

Realigning the stiff bones in his neck with a cracking twist, he shut his eyes. "Come to bed," he invited, moving as far over as possible to leave room for her next to him. "It's late. We don't need to talk about this now. Later."

He was almost asleep when he felt her chilled, very bare, smaller body press in next to his under the sheets. Turning on his side, he adjusted his left arm under the pillows and reached around with his right to trap her, tucking her into him. "Good night, wife," he murmured into her fluffy hair, thoroughly worn out and falling under the lure of the Sandman once more.

The last thing he was aware of before the darkness claimed him was the most tentative brush of Hermione's lips against his, butterfly soft and dewy sweet, and her tender whisper. "Good dreams, husband."

**X~~~~~X**

Draco awoke with a raging hard-on, feeling light, feathery touches caress the underside of his cock. A flush of heat stirred in his loins and traveled over every centimeter of his flesh when a finger traced delicately around his crown and ran over the slit in the middle, and with a moan, he opened his eyes and took a deep, powerful drag of air into his lungs.

Hermione's hand stilled in its exploration of his lower region, and upon his recognition of her action, pulled away. A crimson blush stained her pretty cheeks, conveying to the world the guilt of her curious roaming.

Immediately, Draco reached out and captured her wrist, pulling her back in. "You can touch me," he murmured in a sleepy, deep rumble, the wool-headed phenomena of his deep slumber quickly fading, replaced by a buzzing morning arousal. "My name and my body are yours, remember?" he gently reminded her, hoping to charm her into touching him again. His wife's whole body trembled at his words, but he noted she didn't move away or try to escape. In fact, her face was filled with shy curiosity.

"Go on, take what you want from me," he encouraged, hoping she'd consider hopping on and riding him into bliss.

With bashful reticence, her hand returned to his thigh, and with a flip, he turned the bedcovers down, allowing them both an unimpeded view of the action. The edges of her sharp, white teeth appeared as she bit her bottom lip in trepidation. "I never saw you, our first time," she whispered, reverent of the morning's hush. "Or last night. I've wondered…" Her fingertips brushed through his golden public curls, learning the feel, skirting around his erection for now. Tracing a path down his inner thigh, over his femoral artery, she turned her hand over and gently cupped his testicles, feeling their weight, rolling them between her fingers. "The skin is so soft," she noted, eyes wide.

Draco let out a shuddering breath and swallowed hard, working to keep his penis in check. Merlin, this was hot! He'd never let a woman touch him like this before, learning the curves and angles of his body so intimately. "Gentler," he whispered the request. "I'm very sensitive right now."

Compensating, Hermione trailed delicate, lissome caresses over him with her fingernails, before freeing his testicles and flittering up to palm the bottom of his shaft, running the pad of her thumb over the rounded side. With delicate ease and a dainty hand, she stroked him up and down, causing the blood pooling in his sac to tingle with a growing, greedy need. They didn't talk for long minutes, nor did she look him in the eye as she concentrated on fully appreciating the view and on working him up, marveling in the length and thickness between her fingers. In those titillating moments, Draco glimpsed in her shining eyes the growing knowledge that she could have him however she wanted; that he belonged to her in the same way she did to him. The thought dragged a deep groan from him. His wife looked up into his face in surprise. "You really don't mind me touching you like this?" she asked as she hesitated in her exploration.

He shook his head, staring at her through a heavy-lidded gaze. "I like that you want to know me." Bringing his left hand up, he cupped her jaw, rubbing his thumb over her bottom lip as he reached down and placed his free hand over hers again. He moved them together over him at the same relaxed pace. "Do you want me to come this way?" he softly murmured the question. "Or do you want me to wait until I'm inside you?" That they were going to have sex from this was a foregone conclusion, but giving her this kind of control was his way of making up for last night; an apology with benefits for both of them, as it were.

"I-" Her face was on fire now. "Can you… wait to be inside me before you…? I want to learn your body."

Holding back a chuckle at her inability to speak certain naughty words aloud, Draco conceded to her request with an easy nod. "Touch me in whatever way you wish," he offered, letting her hand go and laying back down. "I'll hold out for you."

Returning her attention to what her hand was now busy doing, Hermione quickly became captivated by his body's reactions to her touch. Her eyes shimmered when he intentionally twitched his muscles, jerking his member in her palm, and her rosy lips parted with an obvious, licentious craving the first time she brushed across the drop of pre-come weeping from his tip. "Taste it," he challenged her.

Their eyes locked as she brought her wetted hand off of him to her mouth and as her small, pink tongue shot out to lap at the tips of her fingers. Draco's guts clenched at the sight of her trying out his flavor for the first time. It was the one regret he'd had of their first time together – that she hadn't wrapped those sweet lips around his dick. Many of his fantasies about her since had involved going back to that day and doing that part over. He groaned when her smile slowly stretched across her face and she licked her lips.

Her heated, dark amber gaze lowered to his lips, then met his stare again, and he understood the unspoken question in their depths. "Take what you want," he spurred her on, his chest close to caving from the pressure of his excitement. As if a floodgate had been released, with unrestrained enthusiasm, Hermione lurched up and attacked his mouth, accidentally banging their teeth together in her rush to reunite their lips. Draco could have cared less about the momentary pain. Only one thing kept echoing around in his mind, as her arms came around his neck: his wife honestly wanted him! There was no mistaking the blatant lust as she had come at him, nor in her little keening moans now, nor in her erect nipples that crushed against his chest as she crawled up his body to lay her naked, warm skin against his.

Fires in Heaven, he'd never expected this from her, and he prayed this wasn't just some wacked out fantasy in his head, brought on by an extreme mental breakdown. If he was right now back in his bed at the Manor, and all of this was a dream or a Patented Daydream Charm, he'd definitely go mad upon waking.

Tongues entwined, his arms came about her waist and he yanked Hermione's lower body on top of his, feeling the crisp hairs of her pubis stroke against the overly-sensitized length of him, noting the dampness of her curls. Every nerve inside Draco roared to attention, and it was only with extreme discipline that he tamped down on his roaring libido to take it slower this time. He'd rushed them last night and had skipped some steps that he now wanted to explore.

Smoothing his hands all down her spine, dipping into her sway, rubbing gentle circles across her bottom, he relearned the feel of her, capturing her gasps and moans in his mouth while he languidly kissed her. His tongue darted out to spar with hers, teasing and coaxing her to play. His wife gave in, curling her little fingers on his shoulders and kneading in time to their mouths coming together. They stayed like that, enjoying the taste of each other, relishing in the foreplay for long minutes, taking their time, much as they had the first time they'd had sex.

Slowly, her hips gyrated over him, and she positioned her sex so his steel sank between her pillowed, moist lower lips. An unexpected groan was torn from Draco's throat at her natural enthusiasm. Pulling back a bit, he cupped her cheeks, running his fingers through her hair. Their foreheads pressed together as they shared the same air with panting lungs, and through the fringe of his golden lashes, he examined her. "Do you know what you do to me?" he gently growled. "What you've always done to me?"

Her fingers mirrored his, and she rubbed her tips through his hair, massaging his scalp. "The same thing you've always done to me?" she tentatively asked.

Merlin, he _needed_ to know! He wanted to hear her say things he'd always dreamed would fall from her lips. He kissed her with heat, lapping at her bottom lip. "Tell me, Hermione," he begged, pressing his hips up and into hers in a seductive rocking motion. The weeping tip of him adjusted closer to her sopping entrance. "What do I do to you?"

She fiercely drove her lips against his, and she increased the pace of her pelvic thrusts. "_Please, _just go inside me!" she pleaded, fisting his hair.

Sliding his hands down her shoulders and back, Draco gripped her waist and altered the angle, pulling her up his body. "Tilt a bit," he bid and when she complied, the head of his cock kissed her opening. Using the strength in his arms, he sunk her down over him at the same time as pushing up, easing in centimeters at a time with unhurried, deliberate action. Her bronze eyes fastened onto his steel grey orbs as they joined bodies and became one.

"What do I do to you, wife?" he whispered as they came together and she was filled up with him. He held them locked in place, refusing to move, despite her insistent whimpering. "Tell me."

Hermione had always been too honest in wearing her feelings on her sleeve, he remembered and had observed. Now was no exception. She was trembling from head to toe with both the need for fulfillment and with an acute terror that she wanted _him_ to give that completion to her. She bit her lip and shut her lids, as if confessing a sin. "You twist my heart and mind up until all I can think about is you, Malfoy." Her throat convulsed with nervous swallowing. "I've never been able to forget you… or what we did… or how I felt about you." Her eyelashes fluttered as she braved going nose-to-nose, eye-to-eye with him. "The truth is, I was never able to let you go either." The last was said so soft he almost missed it, but the words made the shadow over his heart abruptly melt.

With a moan, Draco held tight to her and abruptly rolled them over, slamming his mouth back down on hers, hungry for his wife in a new way - a way he'd been too afraid to ever imagine before experiencing. His hips rocked into her deep, strong, sure as he gave her every bit of his skill, feeling his soul open up and welcome her shining aura. He reverently spoke her name, murmuring it as he lunged into the softness of her feminine core, desiring her to take all of him.

Linking her ankles behind his thighs, slicing into his shoulders with those razor-sharp nails of hers, Hermione urged him on with a shared passion and a strength that belied her smaller body. The bed violently moved beneath them as they drove against each other; the headboard slammed into the wall, and they sweated, tongued, kissed, fucked, and unreservedly shared in those moments. When they came, it was in chorus, in a seizing, devastating, breath-stealing jumble that left them both weak as kittens, struggling to retain their sense of individualism.

As he laid his head across her breast, winded and nearly faint in the afterglow, his mind whirled.

She'd said it right when she'd climaxed; breathed her secret in desperation against his ear, as if afraid she'd never get another chance: _"I love you."_

His response had been pure gut-reaction, brought on by nothing short of unadulterated fear: _"Oh, God!"_

He hadn't even realized until just that second how much he'd desperately wished for her to feel this way about him… and all he'd been able to tell her in response to her sincere, beautiful confession was that it had terrified and confused him.

Saying, 'thank you,' or something as ridiculously unequal at this point would be an insult. And yet, Draco wasn't quite ready to admit that his own feelings might stretch as close as hers. He knew he was _seriously_ infatuated with Hermione; that he had a possessiveness of her that bordered on psychotic almost, and that she'd obsessively haunted his every thought for years. He cared for her safety and hated the thought of her unhappiness, but did that mean he loved her?

As a young boy who's only experience with such an emotion had come from his overly-coddling mother, and perhaps as a teen from his best friend-bond brother, Blaise (although that had been purely platonic), Draco wasn't exactly sure how to define love. He certainly knew he had never felt anything for anyone as much as he did his wife, but… Jesus _flippin'_ Christ, he hardly knew her! He and Hermione had shared a childhood filled with hatefulness, and only at the end of his sixth year had she bothered to actually talk to him - and then, they'd only said a few dozen civil words to each other. Even the afternoon they'd spent in the Room of Hidden Things had been more a plea by her to give up the path he'd embarked upon than an attempt to make friends. The most they'd ever spoken, in fact, had been in this last week, when she'd visited his room to convince him to betray his Master. Surely, that was no basis for admitting you loved someone.

Besides, what if she'd said it only in the heat of the moment? Fantastic sex was known to confuse emotion. He'd had at least half a dozen women over the last three years tell him the same exact thing, and not a one of them had meant it. It had just been something to say, or something they thought he wanted to hear, or something that was brought on by the overwhelming rush of feeling that orgasming conjured.

What the hell should he do or say now in return? He knew she was waiting for his response; could feel it in the shifting of her arms and the way she absently ran her fingers over his perspiration-damped brow.

Bracing his weight on his elbows once more, he looked up to face the music… and instantly, her smile fell, her countenance drained of hope in seconds. She knew what he was about to say, and began emotionally withdrawing, shutting down. Under his ribs, that pulsating organ filled with blood felt a stabbing pain, and he reacted without thought. "Don't… don't regret that," he required, much as he had the first time they'd been in this predicament. He reached up and pulled one of her infuriating, caramel curls between his fingers, releasing it and letting it bounce back. His knuckles feathered her cheek. "I loved what we just did. Don't think it meant nothing to me. It was… Granger…."

Her frown deepened. "It's Malfoy now," she whispered the reminder, tears in her eyes, and then she shoved him out and off of her with unexpected strength and rolled to her feet, heading for the attached bathroom that he'd only just now realized was part of this master suite. The door closed behind her and he heard the lock click into place, and he felt himself shut out once more.

With a silent curse, he pressed his forehead to the pillow that still carried her scent, noting how very chilled he was all of the sudden by her abrupt withdrawal. The cold crept down, all the way to his toes.

* * *

_**TO BE CONTINUED...**_


	5. Chapter 5

**December 9th – 14th, 2001**

His wife avoided him for the majority of the whole week, speaking to him only when required to do so and sleeping as far from him on the bed as she could. As the days progressed, Draco grew more frustrated by her aloofness, but in front of the others, he refused to show it, keeping his impassive mask firmly in place. The game was exhaustive, but he would not acknowledge the ongoing struggle in front of any of them – especially Nott. As far as the group should be concerned, there was no trouble in his marriage.

In private, however, he made his displeasure clear to Hermione. Three times he tried to talk about what had happened, and all three times concluded with him shouting at her. These discussions started on-topic, but somewhere in the middle, took a major left turn, ending on the same note each time: his inability to form attachments to the other women who had warmed his bed over the last three years, which somehow translated into an emotional character flaw on his part. The truth was, it was his obsession with _her_ that was the source for his disinterest in other witches, although he'd refused up to that point to let her know that little detail, for it would give her too much power over him. The result was Hermione twisted their discussions - and his emotions – around so much that he couldn't rightly tell whether he was coming or going some days. She seemed to be the only person in the world that could make him blow his temper anymore.

On Tuesday night, after their separate showers, their fighting had ended in sweaty, rough sex after she'd goaded him yet again. They'd shouted, he'd dropped his towel, lifted her unflattering, flannel nightgown, pinned her against the wall, and then he'd held her so tightly while thrusting away into her that she hadn't been able to free her arms from his lock around her body. It had been totally hot while it had been happening, and she'd certainly shared his passionate need, but the minute he'd come down from his orgasm, his guts had churned with regret. He hadn't kissed her at all. He'd been unnecessarily rough. The need to rinse his mouth and wash up a second time followed him hours later, as the act had felt again too close to rape for his comfort. As he'd lain back against his pillow in the aftermath - following the longest, most awkward ten minutes of his life, where the only spoken word was the Contraceptive Charm she cast upon her womb as soon as he'd let her go - he'd been unable to find solid rest despite his body's exhaustion. A remorseful chill then worked its way into his bones, holding him captive to his misery. Instead of cuddling her to him in the glow, nuzzling into her hairline to breathe in her unique scent, sharing warmth and a kiss goodnight, he'd watched her from across the gap between them as she took her restless slumber, and cursed himself for being the brutish monster he knew he'd become over the years.

That whole week had been torturous turmoil for him. No matter how Draco wracked his brain around the problem of his relationship with his wife, he just couldn't understand why he and she were always at odds. They were married now, bound together for life. There was no way out until one of them died. They had to make the best of this situation, so why was she continually arguing with him, pushing his buttons, upsetting him to the point where he'd turn on her?

Worse, he still had no idea why he'd been "recruited" or what the Order wanted from him. In their nightly meetings, which he insisted upon attending, he'd learned only that Hermione's missions had previously taken her away from the group for days or weeks at a time, although what those assignments were, he never learned. One of them – he thought the most important, by the stress around her eyes when it was spoken about - had something to do with an assignment for his godfather, Severus Snape. That was about the extent he could discern though, as there was a tight-lipped secrecy about the issue maintained through specially coded words that only a few of them seemed to know. The looks Draco would occasionally catch from any of that "in" group, however - especially Longbottom, who seemed to take delight in watching him and snickering in a rather darkly suggestive manner, as if he were enjoying a moment of _Schadenfreude_ - continued to disturb him as well. He knew the Order had plans for him, which was why he was sitting in Shell Cottage unmolested at all, but he hadn't quite figured the puzzle out yet. The pieces to the puzzle eluded him.

He'd let Blaise in on the problem almost immediately, asking his friend to keep his eyes open and his ears to the floor, but so far, he was as much in the dark as Draco. As soon as any of the four defectors were found to be about, Order members clammed up, he'd noted. Even Daphne and Astoria, whom had been more readily accepted (for neither had taken the Dark Mark, and had been victims to the cruelty of the Death Eaters themselves), were shut out. It was a conspiracy that he intended on getting to the bottom of.

**X~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~X**

**December 15th, 2001**

When Hermione came out of the bathroom that Saturday morning, refusing to even look at him, Draco still wasn't sure what to say or do to right things between them. His body, however, certainly had no compunctions about what to do next as he took in her freshly combed hair that hung about her shoulders and her pink-golden cheeks, freshly scrubbed and smelling deliciously of her favorite citrus soap. His penis buzzed awake, rearing to go at a moment's notice with a violent throbbing that was rather uncomfortable. But his wife coldly ignored him as she crossed to the dresser to grab a fresh pair of socks, making his ire jump two levels.

She wouldn't talk to him; he'd tried again last night, to no satisfactory conclusion. His Syltherin training told him that he could always pick another fight with her in the hopes he could get her to finally fess up to what was most bothering her, but his rational, seasoned side wondered where that would it lead them in the end. The old Draco – the cocksure Prince of his House back at school - might have done such a thing, but the more mature, wizened (by viewing death one too many times) Draco realized the futility of such a plan. Antagonizing someone you wanted as your ally did not endear them to your side of the argument, period.

So, he walked past her in silence to the loo to take care of his morning toilet and bathing. The hot shower and quick wank he engaged in only left him grumpy and ill-sated, however. He wanted the real thing; no more of this soapy hand shite. He wanted her not to look at him with either lingering resentment or passive indifference. He wanted this bloody fight between them to be over and done with. They _needed_to reach an understanding today.

When he exited back into the bedroom to speak with her on the matter, his wife was already gone. He let out a string of curses under his breath and hurriedly got dressed, reaching for a fresh outfit from his Bag of Holding. It wasn't until he'd gone back to comb his hair and brush his teeth, and he looked in the mirror that he realized he was dressed all in black from neck to toe. His ensemble suited his mood just fine, though, so he left it. Fuck what anyone thought.

He hurried downstairs to find Hermione at the same table as they'd taken their meeting the evening before, sitting next to Lupin and, to his surprise, Severus Snape on the other side of the werewolf. As soon as he entered, his former Head of House and teacher froze, his eyes narrowed as he measured him up behind sable, glittering eyes.

Draco and his godfather had parted on poor terms after the whole travesty up in the Astronomy Tower following sixth year. The summer after Dumbledore's death, there had been angry words exchanged between them, and despite Snape's attempts to keep him safe the following year in school, Draco had been childishly resentful of the man's constant attempts to secretly recruit him for the Order. At the time, he had refused to leave his parents' side, trusting them, despite all he knew of his father and mother's failures.

He'd been so fucking naïve then, and not for the first time, he wished there was a way to go back and change things…

"Godfather," he respectfully greeted Severus with a nod of his head, having had years to contemplate the wrongness of his actions. "You look well."

An eyebrow arched in surprise. "As do you." The man's black pools of knowledge flicked to Hermione and then back to him. "I see you have finally come to your senses."

The double entendre wasn't missed. He'd confessed to Severus soon after the events of their flight that cold May night that Hermione had tried to get him to turn as well. He'd relayed the details to his elder in a moment of weakness, and it was then that Snape had begun his calculating attempts to conscript him.

Draco nodded. "I have. The enticement was entirely too irresistible - enough to touch even my black heart."

Hermione's head shot up in astonishment and her gaze sought him out, questing for any insincerity across his features. Purposefully, he turned his attention to her, keeping his expression neutral in the present company. His witch's cheeks pinked, though, as she realized that he was quite sincere.

"So, you're committed to ridding the world of our Master then?" Snape icily inquired.

Sneering, Draco pressed his right hand over his left arm. "That bastard never owned my loyalty, and you know it. I stayed for my parents, and out of fear." He pulled back his sleeve, showing his mark of shame to the world. "I'd burn it off if I could."

There was silence, punctuated only by the entrance of a small group of three people into the room – Fred Weasley, Angelina Johnson and Alicia Spinnet - all of whom shut-up immediately and froze in the doorway at the sight of the black tribal skull sigil in full view against the pale backdrop of his forearm. It seemed the Dark Mark had that effect on everyone, as breaths were held back, and eyes glued to the terrible visual before them.

Severus stared at him for long minutes, considering. Finally, he opened his mouth, that sibilant voice of his slicing through the room. "Do you regret it now?"

Draco bitterly smirked. "Every fucking minute of every day. I regret it all."

"Would you change it, if you could?"

That was Lupin, suddenly very intent upon his every nuance, searching for something again. But what?

He nodded. "Absolutely."

Hermione spoke up then, her voice hesitant, thoughtful. "How? If anything was possible within the thread of your life alone, Draco, how would you change it?"

He pulled his sleeve back down, mulling his answer. "I'd go back to that day in the infirmary, and take you up on your offer. No…" He rethought his response. "I'd never have taken the Dark Mark at all. After my father was thrown in prison, I'd have taken my mother and hidden her as far away from here as I could." He looked up, directly into Snape's eyes. "Then I'd have come back and thrown my lot in with you. I'd have found a way to help Potter, instead of-" He acrimoniously bit off, hating the way his cowardice ate at him still, even after three years.

Remus took a deep breath. "We were informed of what you did for Harry, Draco. Giving his body a final place to rest was important. Thank you for that."

He sniffed and shook his head, feeling that hollow, sick feeling in his chest once more, even as the memory of Potter's bloated, pasty features entered his mind unbidden. "It'll never be enough."

"To atone, you mean?" the werewolf asked, and Draco shut his eyes, refusing to answer, holding onto his pride by a thread. "I don't think there's a person in this room who hasn't done something in this war or the last that they regret, Mr. Malfoy. Some of us have more… laments… than others." He could almost see Lupin's light brown-grey eyes pass over Snape at that. "The important thing is wanting to reconcile and make amends. Do you honestly want to do that? Would you take a Vow to that effect?"

Draco opened his eyes, gripping tightly to the question, reading the intent behind it. "You mean to make me a member of the Order then?"

His former professors shared a look, then both simultaneously turned to Hermione, who looked down into her tea mug and nodded once.

"And if we did, would you take the Vow to be loyal to every member of this team, to keep the confidence of the Order, and to die if necessary to protect those secrets and the lives of each one of us?" Remus asked, his voice firm, business-like almost.

He couldn't help it – his gaze was drawn once more to the woman whose life he now so intimately shared. "Sorry, but I can't make such a promise. My marriage Vow prevents me from putting anyone else above my wife and any children we may conceive together." He looked back with some apology to his godfather and Lupin. "If I were required to give up Order secrets to save my family, I must do so in a heartbeat. If Hermione or any of our offspring are captured by the enemy, I'm duty bound to attempt to save them, even at the cost of my life or anyone else's, or the success of a mission. I will always put her safety and the safety of my sons or daughters first. The Vow requires this of me, and the consequence if I turn away from those obligations is immediate death. I literally live for her and for our future now."

Hermione sucked air in between her teeth, realizing that the knife cut both ways this time. She'd made the same promise as he in this regard.

He held up a hand to stave off her immediate, panicked reaction. "However, I purposefully worded the Vow in anticipation of something like this. The magic itself is very literal, so that leaves room to maneuver around it." He repeated the Vow, so they would understand the constraint he and Hermione were both now under.

"So, go on missions together, then," Fred Weasley stated, taking a seat at the table, rolling his tea mug between his hands and blowing on it to cool it down. "That way, you'll be 'faithfully endeavoring' to protect each other while doing work for the Order."

Draco nodded. "Exactly. I'm also under an Unbreakable Vow to Blaise Zabini to protect him from harm, but with the same slippery wording. Basically, if I can do so, I must try to save him from pain or death. It's the same consequence if I try to avoid the Vow to him as with my wife." He took a seat at the table finally, and folded his hands in front of him in plain view. "That's why I can't Vow anything to the Order."

Lupin was tapping his index finger across his lips in consideration. "Unless we alter your Vow to the Order to accommodate such things?" He looked at Severus for confirmation.

The former Potions Master tilted his head and narrowed his eyes in deliberation. "I'm sure we could make arrangements with Mr. Malfoy and Miss Granger…"

"Mrs. Malfoy," Draco automatically corrected his godfather, and peeked a side-long glance at his wife. She stared back at him, with narrowed, unmistakable suspicion at his automatic defense of her title – one he'd just last week bunged up after an incredible morning of sex.

He hated to acknowledge it, but the look cut him up and made him wonder again how it was that this stripe of a woman could undo him so with the smallest look? He was a former Death Eater - a killer of men and a destroyer of the world. He'd survived the Cruciatus under Voldemort's own hand, had participated in the demise of whole cities, and thrown corpses onto the fire pits with his bare hands. And yet the truth was, the tiniest negative turn of phrase or scathing look from her wounded him more so than any curse he'd ever been hit with. It aggravated him that she had such power over him.

He turned his gaze away and back onto Severus, who nodded at him in acknowledgement of the gently chiding reminder and gave him a polite, emotionless smile. "Of course. As I was saying, we could arrange mission parameters to accommodate Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy's joint participation."

Remus nodded and placed his hands, palms down, on the table before him, standing and reaching for his mug, obviously intended on heading into the kitchen, calling his impromptu meeting to adjourn. "Well then, we'll discuss your potential membership in the Order, Mr. Malfoy, at Monday morning's meeting. And that of your friends as well." He lifted his mug and downed the last of the contents with a swig. "In the meantime, I'm going to get more tea."

He smoothed out of the room, tapping Fred on the shoulder once on the way past. The Weasley got the hint and stood. "Come on girls, let's go for a walk. I could use some fresh air." The three headed back into the kitchen to, presumably, put away their dishes before taking their leave of the house.

Draco stared across the table at his godfather, wondering what the man was thinking. He didn't have long to wait. "May I have a moment alone with my godson, Miss… Mrs. Malfoy?"

Hermione stood without a word and went to join the others. She went behind Severus, Draco noted, not around his side of the table. He tried not to let the disappointment show on his face. He'd been honest here today. Shouldn't that at least count for _something_ with her?

It was awkwardly quiet for a good, long minute before Severus spoke up. "You really should learn to steel your face better, boy. Your eyes still give you away."

Son of a bitch, hadn't Hermione said the same thing to him just last week? He'd thought he was better at this game of hide-n-seek. "Don't know what you're talking about, godfather."

Snape sniffed in wry amusement, the edge of his tight, white lips twisting up in a smirk. "Lie to the others if you wish, but I know you. You were always too obsessed with Gryffindor's Princess for your own good."

A haze of red seemed to pass over Draco's eyes for a split second before he got himself back under control. "What are you insinuating, Severus?"

"There's no need to imply what is plastered to your too-pretty mug, young man," his elder chastised him. "Everyone can see you didn't just marry your… _wife_," he said the word with some amusement and another curl to his lip, "for a way out of the Dark Lord's service."

Draco shrugged. "Does it matter why I've defected? I'm here. What more do you want from me?"

Snape narrowed his eyes at him. "Your commitment."

Shaking his platinum bangs out of his face, Draco stared hard at the man across the table from him. "You know my constraints. I'll give what I am able. My priorities are clear."

As if his words irritated Severus to the point of action, the dark-haired wizard stood to his full height quickly and leaned down in a fashion that might have been intimidating once, but now came across as almost desperate. "And what if that's not good enough?" the man hissed.

Unwilling to be unsettled, Draco stared up at his former mentor with a candidly glacial glance. "I was a stupid, scared kid when I turned her away the first time, but I won't ever leave her behind again, godfather. Hermione is_mine_ to protect now… and I will do so - no matter who I have to kill or doom to assure it."

Staring across the width of the blonde oak table, Severus nodded, his face clearing of its previous ire. For a moment, it felt as if Draco had just passed some sort of queer, unspoken test that his mentor had shaped into their odd conversation. "You'd better hope you can fulfill that promise, Draco." It was the first time he'd heard his godfather used his given name in over three years and it made him visibly flinch. Regaining his height, Snape stared down at him impassively now. "Because you may trust me when I tell you that there is no greater regret than to lose the one you love by your own inaction."

Turning on his heel, the dark wizard stalked off into the kitchen, leaving Draco to wonder just how the other man knew such a deeply sad thing.

**X~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~X**

**December 16th, 2001**

Things finally came to a boiling point with Hermione that Sunday night, as Draco was finishing up a series of crunches, determined to keep in shape, just in case things went bad here and he had to fight his way out (being paranoid was a life-saving technique, in his opinion).

Hermione had finished her shower and padded into their bedroom with only a towel about her for modesty, rifling around in a dresser for clothes to sleep in, ignoring him and walking a wide circle around his body as he splayed out on the rug near the bed counting out his three-hundredth sit-up. She'd been giving him the cold shoulder all day, as usual, and he'd ignored it, but just that evening, she'd done something that had finally pissed him off to the point of no return: she'd taken a walk with Ted across the beach, coming back mussed, windblown and with a pink flush to her cheeks. The two had shared an easy, amused laugh together as they passed the three question test at the door, given by Longbottom, and it had infuriated him to see his wife and her ex- together acting so comfortable. They'd then passed by him without so much as a nod and went to take a cup of steaming tea together in the dining room, leaving him to sit in the main common space with only Blaise for company. He'd bitten his tongue and kept his expressionless mask firmly in place with great discipline, refusing to make a scene in front of any of the dozen others in the house, especially Nott, but he'd felt that sickening pull in his stomach all the same. It had taken Blaise challenging him to a game of Wizard's Chess to keep him from stomping into the adjoining room and dragging her to his side like some sort of uncouth barbarian.

Now, though, they were finally alone. He stood up with purpose firmly in mind to settle this argument between them once and for all, not feeling in the least bit apprehensive. It was time to set things straight with his little wife.

She was reaching for a pair of cotton pyjama bottoms from an open drawer when he crowded in behind her and cut off her escape on either end by blocking the way with his thick, corded arms. Immediately, she froze up. Leaning forward, bracing the weight of his body against her back, he bent his mouth to her ear.

"Enough, Hermione," he seductively murmured against her skin, whipping out his favorite low, honeyed tone that he knew would make her shiver in desire. "I call truce. This game between us ends tonight." He began nuzzling her neck with his nose, letting his lips run across her damp flesh, breathing warm air gently upon her pulse point.

Like a small doe herded into a dead-end crevice, knowing the wolf was closing in, his wife's breathing picked up as she began to panic. "Don't," she whispered, swallowing heavily and trying to move away. He thwarted her escape by hemming her in until her belly was confined against the dresser and there was no room to maneuver.

With a soft swipe of his tongue, Draco flicked her earlobe. "Don't what, wife? Don't touch you ever again? Don't want you anymore?" He shook his head so she could visibly see him out of the corner of her eye and pressed in so close that they were practically touching at every conceivable point. "I can't do that. You enthralled me years ago to this need for you, Hermione."

Her knuckles were white as she gripped the towel tighter around her chest. Her voice when she spoke was a shaky, faint mumble. "S-s-stop, I don't want this."

Moving so slowly that she couldn't help but track the movement, he reached up and stroked the hand that held the thin cotton fabric to her form, lightly running his fingertips up and down her smooth skin, attempting to calm her. "You don't sound so sure. I think you _do_ want this, as much as I do. So, why are you afraid?"

"I-it's just sex for you," she stammered, trembling now. "I don't want that."

He nipped her earlobe in silent rebuke, but soothed the sting a moment later with a gentle pull of the tender flesh, letting it go with a tiny lapping motion. "What we've done has never been 'just sex' to me. I've told you that already. Every day since the afternoon we first had each other, I've been unable to put you from my mind. Even before then, I found myself often looking at you, thinking about you - in classes, in the hallways, in the Dining Hall, in the Library. I didn't know why at the time, but it was there all the same." He nuzzled her golden throat, feeling against his lips the blood rushing under her pulse. "This, between us – what I've _always_ felt for you - is different from anything I've ever known. Tell me you don't feel it, too?"

She huffed a few times, trying to catch her breath as he placed teasing, wet kisses all over her neck. "I don't want to feel it. It… hurts… too much."

That gave him pause. He'd convinced himself over the past week that her confession of love had been a heat-of-the-moment type of thing, as she hadn't repeated the sentiment to him since. But as he looked at her in his peripheral vision now, taking in her shimmering eyes, her despairing frown, Draco began to wonder at the depths of her feelings for him. It was so easy to confuse emotion when physical intimacy was involved; sentiments were magnified, passions amped. But logically, he and Hermione didn't really know each other deep down, and although the attraction was undeniable, he wasn't sure it could be called love - not yet, anyway. Besides, not too long ago, Hermione's heart had belonged to Ted, and a person's feelings were often jangly when on the rebound. She might very well be confused as a result.

Still, he knew that what he felt for her was powerful. There was no denial that it had motivated him into betraying his Master and his parents, and into walking away from the only real home he'd ever had. It had also motivated him into taking responsibility for the interests of three others – well, four when you counted Moppy. It had further encouraged him to get up off the floor tonight and come across the room to sue for peace between them, when a part of him inside raged at the fact that she had treated him so unfairly this past week.

Pressing a small kiss to the corner of her lips, he gently took the towel from her grasp and loosened her death grip on it, letting it slide off of her beautiful form and pool onto the floor at their feet. He hummed in appreciation of the feel of her naked back against his bare chest. "I'll fight for you, protect you, and die for you," he repeated his vow from that first night she had walked back into his life. "Is that not enough to prove my sincerity to what we have?"

Stubbornly, Hermione shook her head. "The Vow will make you do that anyway. You said it yourself."

Ah, so that was the bee that had been stuck in her bonnet, and why she'd been so very cold to him ever since yesterday's discussion.

Running his palms lightly over her ivory-gold flesh, he teased her nipples into reacting. His witch's shivering increased in intensity. "I would have done all that without the _Enguesis_, and you know it," he asserted, biting a little harder on the arc of her neck and shoulder, cupping the curves of her breasts and pushing up, bending his knees and running his tight erection up the slit of her hind, wishing to Slytherin he'd removed his own pyjamas previously so he could feel their flesh sliding together.

His wife gasped, her hands reaching out to grip the edge of the dresser to hold her up. "Then why make me marry you?" she asked, turning her head to the side, still fighting this seduction. "Why force the Vow?"

His fingers danced down her abdomen, tickling her bellybutton in passing, smoothing over her hips and molding her thighs, even as he continued to assault her throat with lips and tongue. "Because I want you more than anything in this world, my beautiful wife," he whispered, feeling his blood thrum through his veins, the ache in his sac so heavy with need. "I've wanted you all these years, just as I told you that night you first came to my house. In compromise, I'm finally accepting your offer. So long as it doesn't jeopardize your life or lead me to an unnecessary death, I'll do what ask of me, give you what you need and want." He punctuated that confession with another thrust of his pelvis, slowly running his cock between her cheeks. "And in return, you do the same - just like any marriage."

"_Godric_," she breathed out the fervent prayer in a tiny voice and reached behind her to grip his hips, scoring his flesh with her nails once more. He hissed in pain-pleasure. "You'd better mean it, Draco. You'd better not just be saying this in the moment. I'll kill you if you're lying. I swear I will."

He sucked hard on her neck, leaving a dark red-purple love bite, then lathed up her neck in a slow trace. "I mean it all, Hermione." His fingers dipped into her moist slit and tenderly rubbed her sensitive clit. "Now come apart for me again."

He proceeded to make sweet love to her, bringing her to climax the first time right there against the chiffonier, his fingertips teasing and coaxing inside her sopping wet channel, stroking her desire to liberated heights as his thumb circled her nub of soft flesh at the top of her curly, drenched mound. His other hand smoothed about her waist to pinch and tease a nipple. Enticing her on with naughty words, he cajoled her with sexy profanity that he was sure from her reaction that she'd never heard in bed from any other. When she finally climaxed, her legs clamped a death grip on his hand and she shouted his name in manic joy.

Even as she was recovering her sanity from her first mind-blowing orgasm, Draco lifted Hermione in his arms and carried her to their bed, where he laid her back and did all the things to her he'd wanted to do for years. He dipped his head between her long, golden legs and feasted at her sweet pussy once more, lapping at her salty-honeyed cream, nibbling on her tiny bead. Inhaling with each lap through her fleshy folds, he imprinted upon her scent again, remembering that night so long ago when he'd first been given the privilege to sample her. Gods, he'd forgotten how wonderful she smelled and tasted!

As she had the first time, she thrust her petite hands into his platinum strands and pulled him closer into her, heightening the intimacy, murmuring his name over and over in mounting pleasure as he tongued deep inside her quim and all around her labia. He _Accio_'d his wand and cast the Contraceptive Charm on her tummy, even as he began removing the final piece of his clothing.

By the time she cried out in ecstasy, he was naked, fully erect and straining to be inside her. Thrusting into her tight body even as she was spasming from her orgasm, Draco literally growled in bliss, feeling their combined fluids – hers from her climax, his from his pre-ejaculate – make their coming together a smoothly gliding delight. Unable to wait, the need to fill her with his seed so immediate and desperate, that with deep, strong strokes and heavy pistoning from his hips, he built her back up as quickly as possible, while at the same time, bringing him to his conclusion fast. Looming over her, bracing his strength on his palms, he moved into her, retreated, repeated again and again, moving faster, delving deeper, pounding harder, the urgency in his body taking over all rationality, stripping away the man, leaving little more than the animal behind.

"Hurry," he entreated between clenched teeth, trying not to squeeze shut his eyes, wanting to watch her ecstasy-laden face the whole time, to know he was bringing her over with him. His balls tightened up, and fiery lava scorched through his stiff, hard member, signaling his end. "Oh, fuck, Hermione, _hurry_!"

Reaching between them, as she had the first time they'd done this, she stroked her clit. Thankfully, that's all it took – a few swipes of her fingertips and she clenched around him once more, her spine bowing off the mattress, the nails of her free hand digging into one of his shoulder blades. When she cried out her release, she called his name again.

Feeling her undulating muscles compress all along the length of his cock, Draco finally released in one frenzied, explosive surge, his hips uncontrollably jerking, his back arching of its own will, his eyes rolling back into his head. He shouted her name in rapture, feeling his seed burst from the tip of him to fill her core, seeing her aura shine once more behind his closed eyelids, feeling the warmth of it banish the shadows within his heart.

As the wave passed over them, he slumped forward, his sweaty brow dipping down on rounded shoulders to rest upon her breast, his flexed arms shuddering, holding his weight up to keep from crushing her smaller form. His lungs burned, as did his loins, but contentment floated above all of the pain. Struggling for breath, he pressed weak kisses to her perspiring skin, running his mouth up her throat again, across her jaw, and finally over her lips. "Beautiful, beautiful wife," he muttered in between gasps, coaxing her into opening for him. He languidly tongued her, nipped her bottom lip, and cherished her mouth. "My Hermione. _Mine._" He kept whispering it over and over.

When her small hands wrapped about his neck, and she kissed him back ardently, Draco knew their spat had finally come to a conclusion. He'd made her understand, at long last that he wasn't just in this relationship with her because of an agenda, but because he _wanted_ to be there with her. It still wasn't quite love between them… not yet, but it was damned close. He knew that, she knew that, and it seemed that was enough for now, as she brushed his hair back from his damp, sticky temple and moaned in pleasure, wrapping her legs around him and holding him close.

**X~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~X**

**December 17th, 2001**

Draco was restlessly pacing back and forth out in the large living area of the cottage, which had been charmed to become larger on the inside than out. Twenty-three paces up, twenty-three paces back. He bit his lip, considering all angles of the situation he was currently in.

Rationally, there was no reason why the Order wouldn't indoctrinate him and his friends. They needed of the knowledge Draco and Blaise shared of the enemy, and were guaranteed access to the information only in exchange for making them part of the Third Phoenix. And over the past week, Daphne and Astoria had made themselves indispensable by picking up around the cottage, helping with the cooking, and becoming chummy with some of the members.

However, their admittance was based on a vote, and Draco felt assured that most of the people in the next room – which had been spelled for all privacy, preventing him from knowing what was happening – did not like him from his school days. And they definitely didn't trust him as an adult, seeing as how he'd been a Death Eater, middle-to-low echelon rank or not. If the vote didn't go in his favor, he'd be completely unable to fulfill his Vow to protect Hermione. Technically, he didn't think that meant he'd end up dead, seeing as how all mission particulars would be kept from him (so there wouldn't be a way to tell which operations were potentially life-threatening or not), but it was a small detail he wasn't sure how the magic of his marriage vow would interpret. He could, quite literally, end up dead on the floor the next assignment his wife was sent out on without him.

Needless to say, the uncertainty was disconcerting.

He did have one ace in the hole: Moppy. The little house-elf, who had been readily accepted by all of the members of the household from the get-go (especially Dobby, who seemed to have taken a shining to Draco's miniscule servant), had been called in to give testimony about her Master's character. Draco had always taken excellent care of his tiny attendant, assuring she had proper things to wear without upsetting her about gifts of clothing (which had taken some very crafty maneuvering on his part), had been well-fed, didn't take on too many chores at once, and had enough rest.

He'd convinced his mother to give Moppy to him as a personal servant in his seventh year, to aid him at school. He'd lied, of course. In actuality, the house-elf was to help him Apparate in and out of the school's wards – which house-elves were immune to – when the need to get away from the awfulness struck him. In doing so, he'd kept the little creature away from his father's brutality, too.

Over the years, with his parents increasing absence from the Manor House, and when Blaise was unavailable, he'd actually come to rely more and more on the small creature for company, as well. Moppy wasn't a good conversationalist, but she was a solid, living, sympathetic presence that actually espoused a compassionate nature – an emotion greatly lacking in Voldemort's ranks, and one that Draco desperately clung to so as not to lose himself in the murder and mayhem he was ordered to participate in. If not for Moppy, he thought it most likely that he'd be much more cynical and heartless than he was now. Ironically, that the diminutive creature had been witness to his rare moments of weakness in the privacy of his home, away from the prying eyes of his fellow Death Eaters, and could probably attest to that side of his character under questioning now, seemed a good thing.

When he was all the way on the other side of the room from the two sisters, Blaise came to his side. "Hey, although I'm happy you and Grang… er, Hermione… are getting on so well now, I don't think the rest of the house needs to hear it."

Draco stopped pacing and blinked. It took a moment for his words to sink in. "Shite, forgot the Silencing Charm last night."

White teeth gleamed at him around a teasing grin. "Yeah, mate, you forgot the _Silencio_. Not that it wasn't really hot to hear you two going at it for most of the night, but a bloke's got to sleep sometime, you know?"

For the first time in a long while, Draco felt his cheeks heat up with embarrassment. He ran a hand through his bangs. "Sorry. I'll try to remember in the future not to give you something to wank about."

Zabini's smile dropped away. "Seriously, you two doing okay? You seemed pretty distant from the get-go."

Shrugging it off, Draco tried to sound nonchalant. "Untested waters. Took a little time to come to an understanding."

His best friend shook his head, his dark skin tinted with a blush as well. "What an understanding! What was that – three times, including this morning?"

A true gentleman didn't brag, and Draco had learned the wisdom in keeping his mouth shut when it came to women, so he didn't deign to answer his friend's inappropriate inquiry, simply twisted his lips at him and raise one golden eyebrow in a "you dare to ask," expression that shut Blaise down. Raising his hands in defeat, his bond-brother turned towards the sealed door to the dining area, where the morning's meeting was taking place.

"What's taking so long, you suppose?"

With a deep sigh, Draco simply tapped his inner left forearm, and then did the same to Zabini's own. "Our body art probably isn't prompting any good will at the moment. I'm betting there's a lot of heat in that room right now over it."

Blaise had participated in many of the same activities Draco had, he knew, so there was no escaping either of their pasts. It was going to take a miracle to achieve even a small level of trust from these people, much less friendship. He was fine with that; the only people he cared about were right here in this room and one female in the next. Everyone else could go blow as far as he was concerned - and that included his godfather, if the man continued to push at him. Blaise, Daphne and Astoria, however, needed a place to belong. They had no one within the Order to go to bat for them. If they were turned away, it would be a death sentence for all of them – including Draco, and by proxy, Hermione.

But, Draco knew his clever wife understood this, which was why he was betting they would be inducted into the Order today. "Relax," he attempted to pacify his friend. "We're in. Otherwise, Hermione's life is in jeopardy right along with mine, and they know it."

Blaise gave him a side-long look that spoke tomes. "Which is why you forced the Vow on her, you cheeky bastard. You knew something like this was going to happen."

Draco didn't refute nor admit to any manipulation on his part, especially regarding this issue. He didn't even smirk or strut, as he might have done a mere three years previous. He'd learned his lesson the hard, bloody, painful way about the many uses of Legilimency and how memories could be played back like some sort of Muggle recording device for the watcher. Since then, he'd found it was better to feign complete indifference or ignorance when accused of a wrong doing, especially if it were true (or in this case, partially true; he really had meant it when he'd told Hermione that the main reason he'd forced them to marry was because he'd wanted to be her husband, but there was also a sliver of truth to the fact that he'd forced the Vow as insurance). Plausible deniability was the Slytherin motto, after all, and he'd finally begun adopting that axiom over the past few years to save his arse from punishment when things went bollocks-up.

"How are the girls?" he changed the topic.

Zabini kept his broad back to the two pretty blondes sitting, chatting idly on the couches on the far side of the room. "Adapting well. Tori's taken a shining to Nott."

Draco's gaze shot to his friend. "Has she?" he asked, looking over Blaise's shoulder at the younger girl. "Encourage that."

His best friend nodded, immediately understanding Draco's intention. "Siccing her on Ted might work to get him off your woman, but if it backfires, she could end up broken-hearted. She's much too sensitive." When Draco gave him a questioning look, Blaise shrugged. "The Sorting Hat should've picked Hufflepuff for her. She was a terrible snake."

Now was not the time for an attack of conscience, and so Draco stood firm. His relationship with Hermione was much too important – for a lot of different reasons – for Ted to get in the middle of. "Encourage her fascination. I need Ted out of the picture. He has too much influence on my wife as it is, and I don't want him interfering anymore."

Zabini accepted the instruction with a deep sigh. "You'd better hope she doesn't find out."

Taking in the blonde's profile – she really was cute, with an open, honest face, adorable features, pretty eyes. Nott would be an idiot to turn that up. "You won't tell her – or her sister – that I asked you to do this. You'll make it seem the most natural consequence to your observations."

Blaise shook his head. "I'm not talking about Tori."

Ah, he referred to Hermione then. "Ditto on the keeping your yap shut where my wife is concerned and everything will work out just fine."

"Better hope so," his friend warned. "Still, I'd invest in a helmet, if I were you - just in case."

The door to the dining room opened and the entire group exited, gathering in the large romp space. Immediately, Daphne and Astoria met him and Blaise in the center of the room, and the four former Slytherins huddled together in solidarity. Even after all these years, House loyalty still ran deep, Draco amusedly thought, keeping Blaise slightly behind him, and the girls on either side of the big, dark-skinned Italian.

Snape stepped forward and held out his hand. "Congratulations. It seems you four are now members of the Order."

Shaking the man's extended grip, Draco's eyes wandered for a moment over his godfather's shoulder… and caught the venomous look Nott threw at him. Clearly, he hadn't won his former friend's vote tonight. Not that he was in the least bit surprised by that revelation.

Dismissing the tall, dark wizard, he scanned the gathering, seeking out his wife in the crowd instead. His eyes passed over many familiar faces, only to be drawn to the side by movement as Hermione stepped forward. As she reached out and took his hand, entwining her fingers with his in an intentional public display of affection, their gazes locked onto one another, and for the space of a dozen heartbeats, the world beyond their sphere did not exist. Staring down at her shorter height, Draco felt as if he were drowning in the open, sincere appreciation of his person that greeted him. "Welcome to the Third Order of the Phoenix," she congratulated him, squeezing his hand once.

His lips twitched upwards in a small smile of satisfaction. "Excellent. Three's always been my lucky number."

* * *

**_TO BE CONTINUED…_**


	6. Chapter 6

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **

1. A long update for you - over 10,000 words this chapter (whew!) to apologize for taking so long to update. A lot of very important character development in this chapter, plus overall future plot hints everywhere (see if you can point them out). **Enjoy!**

2. Also, how many references to "three" can you find in this chapter (be it the number or the number of times something is said or the number of emotions in a single sentence). **First one to guess right gets the next chapter dedicated to them!**

3. Finally,** PLEASE REVIEW! **This fic isn't getting enough reviews for my curiosity. Are you liking it/hating it? Is there something/someone more you'd like to see? *_singing to you* __"Why am I so desperate for your voice? Why do I need to know you better?" _- you've reduced me to begging you through show tunes!** ^_~**

On with the chapter now...

**

* * *

****December 17th, 2001**

After the announcement of Draco and company's acceptance into the Third Order of the Phoenix, the general meeting continued in the Living Area, with he and his three friends allowed attendance. Everyone took seats on the couches or conjured chairs to sit in. Some, like Nott, chose to lean against the wall instead so they could take in the room. Hermione led Draco, Blaise, Tori and Daph to the largest couch and they all sat together. She explained that although they were Order members now, none of them would be tattooed, for everyone's protection (Draco and Blaise in case they were needed to be used for spying on Voldemort's camp, although Draco assured her that now that they were A.W.O.L., it would be "kill on sight" for he and his best friend; Daphne and Astoria for the same reasons, if they were required to be activated in the future, which Draco thought preposterous, as neither woman was an Occlumens and would be ferreted out quickly). Basically, they could not leave the confines of the cottage interior without an Order member, or else they wouldn't be able to find their way back.

At first, this bristled Draco, but after some contemplation, he saw the wisdom in the idea. None of them had been put to Veritaserum, and were being accepted solely on the basis of Granger's faith in them. She'd staked her reputation on the four refugees-slash-recruits not betraying them. Could he have been so trusting were their roles reversed?

That night, he and his wife went to bed right after dinner and he made love to her slowly for the first time, spending several hours pleasuring her. He'd made sure to cast the appropriate privacy spells in advance, too (as well as the Contraceptive Charm), so that when she orgasmed and shouted for him throughout that night, no one else would hear (Draco was a jealous man and didn't like sharing such personal, privileged moments with others, and his name drawn from her lips in such a manner was for his ears alone). Zabini would have no smart remark for him again, he vowed.

He took her with his fingers and mouth initially, exploring every crevice and curve on her body, discovering nerve endings or sensitive spots that would make her whimper or moan, relentlessly exploiting the sites that made her cry out or caused her to quake with desperate longing. She came several times for him before he finally joined his aching, hungry body to hers, working his thick cock into her tight, wet channel centimeter-by-centimeter, watching her sweaty, yearning, pleading expression the whole time, letting his own pleasure at the little sounds she made entice him further. It was the most emotionally fulfilling coupling he'd ever experienced with a woman, and when they came together, he felt her aura through every pore of his body, cocooning and permeating him with its warmth. He kissed her with all of the years of pining he'd been carrying around in his chest, and moaned her name into the damp skin of her neck as his body emptied itself into her thoroughly. In the glow after, he held her, playing with her lovely curly hair before falling into his slumber.

**X~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~X**

**December 18th, 2001**

On Tuesday morning, Draco took his wife in the shower against the wall in a hot, fast fusion that was totally the opposite of the night before. She let him press her into the tile, shuttling his cock into her to the point of pain for them both before exploding into her just at the pinnacle of her own climax. It was a perfect harmony of physical pleasure between them, as he'd always fantasized it might be, and he knew right at that moment, as he held her pinned to the wall, holding onto her trembling frame and struggling to regain his breath, that he would never regret his decision to bind them together. Hermione was _his_ – had been from the moment they'd first kissed – and he would do whatever it took to keep her at his side forever.

Later that day they spent relaxing with Lupin, who Draco discovered was a very perceptive and cunning man (he attributed it to the wolf within), as he had his arse handed to him repeatedly at Wizard's Chess (a game he prided himself on being rather adept at playing). To his amazement, his former professor also beat time and again Blaise, who was an even better challenger, but he then lost to little Astoria Greengrass. Draco didn't see any deceit in the man to make him suspicious that the guy had thrown the game to the girl; instead, he saw a Master strategist in his former Housemate's thought-process. Clearly, she was an excellent tactician - which _finally_ accounted for why she'd been sorted as a Slytherin (something Draco had always questioned, as the girl never seemed to fit in very well socially).

That evening, after dinner, he retired to the living area to speak with his friends. To his utter delight, his wife came and sat next to him, even reaching for his hand to hold. Her desire to touch him in front of others warmed his heart, chasing away the chill that always seemed prevalent whenever she wasn't about and near to his body. Zabini and Daphne noticed, of course, but Astoria was too busy playing another game of Chess, this time against Dobby, who had come out of the kitchens to join the group as an equal (Moppy stayed constantly at his side, he noticed). Apparently, his family's former house elf had evolved mentally; he no longer referred to others as "Master," or "Mistress," but used their first names. It was enough of a shock to Draco to make him question Hermione about it.

"He saved my life," she explained softly, looking at the little elf with fondness and affection. "The day we escaped your Manor House, it was Dobby who provided the distraction so we could get away. Your aunt would have murdered me, but Dobby prevented it by dropping the chandelier just in time. During the break out, he was stabbed by the knife that your aunt threw at Harry, and it almost killed him. It took him a year to recover, which is why he couldn't help during the Final Battle. He was devastated by Harry's death and blamed himself for months." She stopped and wiped at the corner of her eye with the back of her hand, composing herself with amazing strength. "We nearly lost Dobby several times to his despair and injuries since. It was then that we realized that he saw us as sort of his children, not his masters. Everything changed after that. We started insisting he call us by our names. It took some time, but... he's more than earned his place as an equal amongst us."

Looking at the situation through her eyes, Draco realized that he owed the miniature creature a debt of honor as well, as Hermione would have surely died that day at his ancestral home if Dobby hadn't rescued her. The elf had done what he could not do then: stood up to the Death Eaters at great personal risk to rescue innocents. Feeling shame in the face of such bravery, Draco made what could be considered his first real selfless decision then. "Do you think if I freed Moppy into his care, that they would both like that?" he whispered the question in his wife's ear, not wanting the others to hear him being so soft.

Hermione's eyes widened, lit up. The expression on her face, the soft, "Oh!" of surprise and happiness, made his heart patter madly under his ribs. She leaned in and whispered back, her breath warm and tickling on his throat. "I think that is a _wonderful_ idea… husband." It was the first time she had voluntarily called him by that title since the night of their renewed sex life, ten days previous, and it brought a thrill to hear it escape her lips again. Without thought, he slid the side of his cheek into hers, keeping her face pressed to his neck, while his knuckles brushed the exposed planes of her throat. They didn't speak, but he knew she relished the coziness such closeness allowed, the same as him.

Blaise cleared his throat, bringing him back to their situation in a flash, however. Draco abruptly sat back, letting his hand drop, realizing that he'd been much too emotionally revealing in too open a space. It wouldn't do for this group to see him exposing his feelings this way; it could prove to be dangerous in fact, especially with Nott prowling about somewhere. Nodding once in thanks to his friend across the way, who watched him behind enigmatic, dark eyes, Draco looked at his wife and spoke in a low murmur. "I'll see it done."

She gave him a tentative smile, as if she hadn't understood his abrupt withdrawal and it had somehow stung her. "I have… the duty roster to go through with Lupin still." She stood to escape, clearly ill-at-ease by his sudden requirement for distance. "If you'll excuse me?"

As she made to pass, he watched her carefully, aware of the straightening of her shoulders, and the commanding presence that she cloaked herself with once more as a protective measure. She traded nods and smiles with some of the others in the room as she headed up the stairs to find Lupin, who was no doubt in his room resting, but Draco could feel her disappointment following her out. It bothered him, like an itch he couldn't scratch, and he knew he'd have to rectify her understanding of the situation soon.

He gave it an hour, and then he went in search of his wife, and when he found her sitting on their bed in their room, legs crossed tailor fashion, paper in hand, a Muggle pencil readjusting the duty list, he shut the door quietly, bespelled the room for privacy, and proceeded to make up his earlier treatment of her by seducing her again. At first, she was somewhat stiff in his arms, but soon he had her writhing under the skill of his mouth and tongue once again.

As he brought them together fully, inserting himself through the undulating sheath of her saturated, velvet muscles until he was buried deep inside, he held quite still and gently rubbed his fingers over her jaw line, pulling her full attention to his face. "It's dangerous for me to show too much emotion for you in public," he explained as gently as possible. "There are some here who would see me fail or worse, and I have too much to protect to appear weak before them." Slowly, he withdrew from her body until he was almost fully out of her, and then he inched back inside just as leisurely. "I know you don't want to think of your friends that way, but I must. It's all I know how to do to survive, Hermione. I _have _to safeguard you, and not just for the Vow either." He kissed her with tenderness as his hips went motionless again. "I want you to understand why I pulled away from you earlier, and why I may have to in the future – at least in public. I _need _you to understand that it has nothing to do with my want of you, and everything to do with my... care of you."

Very hesitantly, her fingertips smoothed across his cheek in return. Shimmering golden-brown orbs considered him carefully. "I'll try. I really will. But… I need you to understand me, too, Draco. Despite all of the evil I've seen in this war, I have to believe that these people I live and fight with can be better than how to paint them. I'm not trying to be naïve; I see how much Theo hates you, and Neville, and how the others look at you with suspicion. And I know you've had to be suspicious and careful because of where you came from, but here… I have to believe in my friends to do the right thing. I have to believe that someday, all of this will change for the better – including how people treat you. It's all _I _know how to do to survive. It gives me hope."

He kissed her again, resuming the rhythm in and out of her snug, warm body. "I know. You're too good for this world, Hermione. Too good for me." His tongue snaked out as his growing hunger for her began to race through his veins. "So beautiful, and too _fucking_ good for any of us."

Their love making heated up exponentially after that, and all too soon, they were rocking the bed again with the powerful collision of their hot, sweaty bodies. Draco called out for her as he unraveled, unable to contain the urgency of his driving need, but thankfully his wife crested the wave of her climax soon after, so that by the time he'd stopped pulsing inside her, she'd collapsed weakly in his arms. Minutes later, as he pulled them under the covers together, knocking her pad of paper and pencil to the floor with a nudge of his foot, thus leaving the world outside their bedroom door to turn without their input for the next few hours, Draco found that sleep eluded him immediately, despite having just ejaculated in a more than satisfying manner.

Summoning his wand to his hand silently, he cast the Contraceptive Charm over her belly as his wife slumbered, dead to the world already. It was as if she'd known he wouldn't forget to do this (he hadn't once since she'd asked him to respect this wish of hers, in fact), but if their roles had been reversed, _he _wouldn't have been able to sleep a wink until he'd done the bespelling himself. She had such trust in him…

And that was the major difference between them; the line that divisively marked them as character opposites: Hermione's greatest strength lay in her _belief_, his in his _suspicion_. They truly were the epitome of their House axioms, clashing and meshing together in strange ways. They stood as red and gold versus green and silver, courage versus cunning, faith versus skepticism. They were opposites that needed each other to exist, to compare and contrast, to learn and grow, otherwise they would stagnate. It was this push-and-pull dichotomy that had always captivated him, and had enslaved him to her eventually.

Yet, such contradictory, conflicting outlooks on life could easily tear a lesser partnership to the ground, and bring them both to their knees, Draco knew. He determined then and there _not _to ever let that happen. He liked this freely given, untested trust Hermione placed in his hands, and he wanted to keep it, cherish it, and nurture it.

They _would_ make this work somehow. He would never rob her of her hope.

Snuggling her close to his chest, he fell asleep to the sound of her deep, even breathing, unconsciously synching his own to match.

**X~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~X**

**December 19th, 2001**

Draco awoke to find Hermione in the shower ahead of him again, this time humming. He snuck in and joined her, washing away all of last night's sins, only to commit them all over again this morning. This time, though, he came into her from behind as her palms pressed against the tile wall. It was pure fucking, old-school style: fast, sweaty, with lots of naughty language whispered to coax the other on towards a swift release (as if they were playing at being locked in a broom closet back during their Hogwarts days or something equally arousing). He gave in first, unable to hold back – she always made him lose control quickly! – but he brought her soon after with his fingers toying with her clit, his mouth pressed against her ear, charming her with profane cajoling, continuing to shove his still-hard dick into her roughly (like she wanted it, begged for it even). Her rippling explosion half a minute later pulled at him, coercing an extra spurt of his own residual seed to find its home deep in her cunt, and he groaned at the fiery ecstasy that unexpected release created deep inside his gut, never having experienced such a thing before.

After he pulled out, he turned his beautiful wife about and pinned her into the wall, shoved his dripping come back into her with his fingers, feasting at her lips with his mouth and tongue. He worked his way back down her body expeditiously, licking and kissing and sucking every centimeter until he was able to finally bury his tongue between her legs. He tasted their mingled release and moaned at the combined flavors of sweet and salt, loving their sexual mix. Using all his skill, he worked them both back up without delay (her with his suckling mouth and nipping teeth and flickering tongue, him with his own hand, stroking hard and fast up and down his taut length). Pulling back just as she inched towards her peak, taking his hand off himself at that same moment, he lapped back up her body with delicious intention, latching onto her lips again, sharing their united essence in a clash of wet, greedy tonguing.

As he opened his eyes, he watched her face as she fed upon his mouth. Her lids were shut, the lashes fluttering softly, and her expression was so intent and desperate – _so honest_. In his chest, Draco's heart slammed repetitively against his ribs, attempting in its rhythmic beat to entice him to acknowledge the feelings he had held himself purposefully distant from for too long. It was a losing battle, though; it had always been so with her.

As soon as he conceded the truth deep inside, Draco felt his body burn with need and his cock spasm, begging to be sheathed within her again. Quickly shutting off the water, knowing they'd return later to finish cleaning up, he fast-dried her with a towel, then carried her over to the bed, laid her back into the soft, white sheets and entered her again with one fierce thrust, gasping at the feel of her perfect body gripping him so firmly, securely. He moved right away, giving no quarter, pounding into her with passionate determination. His eyes locked on hers as he wed their flesh together with fiery adoration, sinking her deeper into the pillows and the mattress as he loomed over her with his body's greater weight.

"I love you," he stated simply.

It didn't feel strange to say it. It felt right, ordained almost, as if the words had always been there hiding behind his tongue and teeth, waiting for the correct cue to grant them their freedom.

Hermione's eyes widened, and quickly filled with wavering tears. Her pretty, pink mouth parted on a sob as her arms came up around his neck, her fingers fisting his shaggy, silver-blonde hair and dragging his face down to hers. The hot tracks of salty water poured down the sides of her cheeks, lost in the dampness of her hair in their passing as she pressed their mouths together in an intense kiss.

"Say it again," she implored as she pulled away, her eyelashes fluttering open.

He never slowed his rhythm down, grabbing the headboard with one hand, his other hand bracing his weight on the cushion. He ground into her with every thrust, burying himself to the hilt each time. "I love you," he grunted, his words coming as agonized pants as he quickly felt the lava burning up through his blood, causing all his muscles to tighten up. "I think… since the moment… I woke up in the hospital… back in Sixth Year… and you yelled at me for almost dying… and _fuck_… I'm going to come in you soon…"

Pulling his head down to hers once again, Hermione captured his lips in another ardent kiss that left him silently begging for oxygen. "I love you, too, Draco," she gasped in return, her forehead pressed to his, his long, platinum bangs brushing against her flushed, wet cheeks as they rocked together, both frenzied for completion. "I watched you… for months… I couldn't stop watching you… because I _knew_ I loved you, even then." The tears kept pouring from her eyes, as she kissed him, her hips shoving upwards to meet his down strokes with possessed strength. "For years, I've known… no matter where I ran… I've known I was always _yours_."

"_Oh, god_," he exhaled in one heavy rush, feeling his heart clench with fear and love simultaneously. He'd waited _so long_ to hear those words from her!

Deep in Draco's soul, he knew that from this point forward, things would never be the same between them. This moment marked the Enguesis not just of their bodies, but of their feelings.

"You're mine - _finally_ _mine_," he squeezed his eyes tight and nearly cried with relief.

Increasing his tempo, he felt the burning warmth envelop him again, felt the eruption of feeling melding with emotion, and as he released his seed in powerful bursts into her already convulsing pussy, he shouted in blissful surrender. His wife echoed his cry, and they locked together in light and warmth as her aura shined around them both once more. Her legs wrapped aggressively around his waist, and his arms completely around her shoulders, and both had their faces buried in the other's neck as they swallowed and exhaled hard, fighting to regain sanity, even as their bodies died and came back to life together.

As soon as the last surge of come shot out of him, and he knew he could give no more, Draco rolled them onto their sides. He remained sealed inside Hermione, however, refusing to let go. They stayed like that for long heartbeats, sculpted together as a single entity, connected by their most intimate selves, their cheeks resting on the pillows as their heavy, gulping breaths began to slow and calm. They watched each other with some small amount of vulnerability and trepidation in those seconds.

"Say it again," she finally pleaded with an exhausted sigh.

Draco was quiet a moment to gather courage back up. Saying it in the heat of the moment had been easy, because it had been Fate, and because the truth had eagerly sought its escape, but this time was a bit harder on his wretched, blackened heart. Draco wasn't used to loving anyone, not even himself. He pretty much subsisted to this point only because he'd been too much a coward to die. What little amount of such a positive emotion there was to be found in the core of his being was for his best friend's unswerving loyalty, for his little house elf's tireless devotion, and for this woman's unearned, undeserved faith. Yet, he would give it all up to her – this fragile, undernourished, hesitant part of his soul, praying he didn't break it in the transfer, and that she didn't shatter it hatefully someday.

"I love you," he murmured so softly it was barely sound, his eyes seeking out and holding onto her attention. "Until I meet my end, Hermione, I am yours."

The sleepy smile she gave him was real and sincere, and it burned into him with the same strength as the sun. Her fingertips danced over his lips tenderly. "I love you, too, my husband - to the end. I will never betray you."

That seemed a decidedly strange thing to say, Draco thought. He was determined to ask her specifically what she meant by those words at a more appropriate time. Right now, though, he just wanted to enjoy the post-coital glow. They'd finally come to the important juncture in their relationship, and he wasn't going to ruin the moment with questions.

They stared at each other for several long minutes after that, finally succumbing to a small cat nap in the warm, comfortable hush to recoup their strength, waking an hour later refreshed… and lusty for each other again.

They spent the remainder of the day in bed (and the shower), screwing and loving and learning in small, observable ways – a touch here, a sound there - stopping their play only when necessary for food or restroom breaks, or to recast the Contraceptive Charm. People knocked on their door several times throughout the morning and afternoon, until Draco (in a fit of exasperation, for this last visit had come right as he was pounding into Hermione from behind – one of his favorite positions, for the depth it allowed him to plunder) finally summoned Moppy and asked her to announce to Lupin that they were not to be disturbed until Thursday morning, sometime after nine. Hermione interjected that they were enjoying a one day honeymoon, in case anyone was truly curious to know. Moppy grinned, cheeks pinked and blue eyes shining knowingly, and promised to bring them dinner later when they called, then snapped back to the kitchens below.

It was the best day of Draco's life, in all honesty. He couldn't remember every feeling so emotionally and mentally free or so utterly physically satiated (despite his physical exhaustion).

**X~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~X**

**December 20th, 2001**

There were no sexual games that morning when Draco finally awoke, as he found Hermione already gone from their room. The mirror in their bath was fogged, indicating she'd showered without him. Apparently, he'd been so done in from their previous activities the day and night before that he hadn't even felt her slip out of bed, nor heard the water flowing against the echoing tiled room as she'd cleaned up.

Crawling back into bed, he laced his fingers behind his head and stared up at the gabled ceiling above. He hadn't shagged so thoroughly in his entire life as he had yesterday, and although his balls were tender and sore today, he felt bloody fantastic! He closed his eyes and went over every minute of the previous twenty-four hours in his mind, feeling himself growing hard almost immediately with the conjured memories.

Hermione really loved him.

There was no lie in her eyes as she'd said those three words to him (and he'd made her tell them to him _a lot_ after she'd let that particular cat out of the bag, sweet-talking her into it with wicked, pleasurable sensations each time). This was no rebound thing for her either, as she'd made it clear that she'd loved him for a long time. She'd even admitted to never having loved Ted, which was why she'd broken things off with him. Her heart had only ever belonged to him, she'd explained. That meant that what his little wife felt for him was genuine and faithful, and she was all his in every way now. The thought made his chest ache, and he rubbed a hand over his left pectoral in circles to ease the tightness.

He wondered, though, about some of the things she'd said yesterday during her confession. She'd been watching him for months, she'd stated. When was that time exactly, he wondered? Was it back during their Sixth Year together, or did she mean recently? And the reference to betrayal bothered him immensely. He knew Lupin and the others had a plan for him - that they would use him for their own ends - but how would Hermione betraying him figure into that game? He wanted answers - needed them. Not just for himself, but for Blaise, Daphne and Astoria, too. They would all ultimately be caught up in whatever machinations the Order's senior members were concocting, and he had to maneuver things in their favor well before such plans were revealed. He would not allow his friends to be thrown to the wolves, and he would not allow Hermione to be used as a pawn, either. She may have the outer appearance of the Queen on this playing field, but in reality, Draco had the impression that she was more the King on a chessboard – the overly-protected figurehead. Yes, she was sent on missions on occasion (another secret he would require to be divulged to him soon), but he had the distinct impression that she was more often held in reserve, limited in her movements. It was primarily instinct talking - an opinion based upon a mere twelve days of minimal, silent observations - but Draco had learned long ago to trust his gut, for it had saved his arse more than once while working for the other side.

He also wanted to know where Ronald Weasley was hiding. No one had so much as mentioned the ginger-haired git or his little sister, not even his twin brothers, who were in the house with him. Where was the second of The Golden Trio, and why wasn't he hanging about all over Hermione as he had been back in their school days? For that matter, where were his parents and other siblings? Only Fred and George appeared to be part of the Order. He knew the eldest Weasley son, Bill, had been killed the September before last, but what of the Dragon Tamer, Charlie, or his prat younger brother, Percy? What had happened to the She-Weasel, Ginny?

Draco was determined that he _would_ get his answers within the next week, no matter what he had to do to secure that information.

First, though, he needed to talk to Blaise, get his best friend's impressions of the situation; a second opionion, as it were.

Getting up, he showered and dressed quickly, grabbed his wand and made his way down to the second floor where Blaise's room was located. His best friend answered his door wearing only a towel about his waist. "Just getting into the shower," the dark-skinned wizard stated, turning and heading for the bath. "Make yourself comfortable," he indicated the neatly made bed with a wave of his hand and stripped his towel off his hips as he stepped into the smaller, blue-tiled connecting room, tossing it onto the back of a rack.

Draco turned and bespelled the room heavily against spying, locking the door at the same time. Their discussion was a private one. "Where's Daphne?" he asked, speaking louder so he could be heard over the running shower. Every room in Shell Cottage, Draco had found out a few days ago, had been magicked to be wider inside than current dimensions allowed, and to have a private bathroom with a shower (in a few cases, a tub instead). The rebellion's home base was designed for comfort, since many of the group was often rotated out into the field for a week or two at a time for reconnaissance or food gathering missions and magicked hot water was a necessity that was taken advantage of by everyone, he noted.

"Downstairs with Tori, catching breakfast," his friend's deep baritone boomed from the shower stall. The sounds of splashing water accompanied the discussion. "What's up?"

Draco stepped around the door jamb and leaned his shoulder against it, not wanting to shout. "I spelled the room so we can talk. I want your impressions of the situation. Starting talking."

Through the hazy shower curtain, Blaise was rubbing soap onto a washcloth, getting it lathered up, and began scrubbing himself down. "Lupin and Snape are going to use the girls to spy after they've trained them up a bit in Occlumency. They won't send Granger – sorry, _Mrs. Malfoy_ - out again on a major Op, because they don't want you to know what she's really up to. They're probably going to either reassign her work to someone else, or trick her into working on it without realizing that's what she's really doing, because she's too fucking honest not to tell you. You and I are going to be sent on a suicide mission so Hermione will be free of you and the Order can maybe win some sort of victory to boost morale at the same time." He rinsed off and put the wash cloth down, then opened the curtain and looked at him. "Oh, and your wife is completely in love with you. You're not alone in your sappy feelings now."

With that blunt, extremely accurate assessment, Blaise shut the water off, grabbed his towel, dried himself off, and stepped out, unconcerned with his nudity. They'd been in the same dorms for years, and Slytherin's showers had no stalls, so Draco wasn't fazed in their least by his friend's naked bum either. It wasn't like they hadn't seen each other in the buff before.

Heading past him, Zabini made a bee-line to his dresser, pulling out the day's clothes, tossing them on the bed behind him. "That any different from what you know?" his best friend asked dryly. "Or was I just reiterating the obvious, as usual?"

Draco chuckled. "Well, I wasn't sure if you'd caught on yet to the suicide mission part. I was saving that little surprise for your birthday."

Turning about, Blaise began dressing, slipping a pair of tight-fitting boxers and Muggle military-styled trousers over his hips. "But you knew about your wife's feelings?" his friend asked neutrally. He slung both a black tee and a long-sleeved cotton lounging shirt up and over his head, pushing his arms through the holes and tugging them down.

Draco couldn't help the smile that teased up his cheek. "Yeah, she sort of told me yesterday."

One of Blaise's dark eyebrows twitched as he sat on the bed and tugged on some black woolen socks. "Nice honeymoon then?"

"The best," Draco casually commented, grinning like a freaking cat now. "How about you?"

Blaise sniffed. "Daphne stays with me here sometimes, but usually sleeps next door with her sister and those two Gryffindor shielas that are always around the Weasley twins."

Draco looked at his friend seriously, losing his humor. "She loves you, you know," he finally stuck his nose where it didn't belong. "Ever consider it?"

Blaise stood and headed towards the door to get his shoes. He bent, and leaning against the wall with one hand, slipped his boots onto his feet, kneeling next to tie the strings the old fashioned way. "I care about her," he said while tightening and tying off the laces. "And yeah, I love her, but I'm not _in_ love with her. I'm pretty sure it's the same for her."

He didn't push his bond-brother any further, knowing by the stiffness in his friend's posture and the curt way he'd answered that this was one subject that was now closed – permanently.

But like the Slytherin he was, that didn't mean he couldn't make use of the information he'd just learned.

"In any case, I think you're dead on with the rest," Draco returned to the original subject. "For that reason, I need to know what Hermione's mission was, and what the Order specifically has planned for each of us, and I need to know fast." Now he let drop the idea that had been brewing in his head since yesterday, but only now had the ammunition necessary to voice out loud. "You and I will be useless, so it'll be up to the girls to keep their eyes and ears open."

Blaise paused in getting back to his feet, and smirked a tad bitterly. "I suppose. Tori's already caught Nott's interest. He was impressed with her chess skills the other day. Daphne…" He lost his humor all together, acidic though it had been. "Who do you want me to send her after to seduce?"

It bothered him to think that Blaise assumed automatically Draco would ask him to pimp out his lover. Then again, that's what he'd been contemplating. Now, though, seeing the look of cynicism in Blaise's eye... He shook his head, changing his mind on the fly. "No need. Just have her keep her senses on alert when around Lupin, Longbottom or the Weasels, maybe make herself fit in better, so people won't be so on guard when she's nearby. Suggest she try to make friends. That's all."

The tiny loosening of Blaise's shoulders was all that gave away his relief. "I'll talk to her today," he murmured, silently _Accio_-ing his wand to his hand from the side dresser. "What about you?"

Draco rubbed the back of his neck, smirking. "I'm going to suggest a little outing with my wife to engender her good will. And by proxy, maybe the group's, too. It's Christmas, after all."

Blaise blinked and looked at him sharply. "Shit, is it that time again?" He scratched his cheek. "I've lost track."

"Easy to do. War makes you forget how to live. It only teaches how to survive," Draco quoted matter-of-factly.

His best friend's gaze was unexpectedly far away and he was silent for several minutes. Draco felt he ought not to disturb the moment, letting Blaise have his internal contemplations, wondering what thoughts flitted through that usually adroit mind. "Hey, did Potter have green or blue eyes?" he suddenly asked in a rather melancholy tone. "I've forgotten now."

That was surprising; Blaise never seemed to forget anything. "Green," Draco replied automatically. He'd looked into those eyes enough with anger and resentment as a child that he'd never be able to take such a detail from his memory. "They were bright green."

Blaise hummed in astonishment. "Why did I think they were blue?"

Draco shrugged. "It's not really important, I suppose."

His bond brother speared him on an intense, fiery gaze then. "Yes, it is."

There was hidden meaning behind his words, Draco realized, and he abruptly understood: they should _never_ forget such a noble, selfless sacrifice as the one Potter had made, and that began with not forgetting the boy who'd made it – not any part of him, even something as seemingly insignificant as the color of his eyes. He nodded in comprehension and agreement. "You're right, it is."

A knock interrupted their discussion, and Blaise turned away to answer the door. It was Daphne. "I saved you both some breakfast," she explained her disturbance away with an offer that she'd obviously known would be too tempting to resist. "Interested?"

Blaise rubbed his tummy in circles. "Yeah, I'm starved. Thanks, babe." He kissed her on the cheek and took her hand. "You coming?" he asked over his shoulder.

Draco nodded and followed them out. "Have you seen my wife today?" he asked casually to the blonde witch as they made their way down the wooden hallway to the stairs.

Greengrass nodded hesitantly. "Um, she went for a walk after eating. With… um… Ted."

Instantly, hot jealousy sliced into Draco's guts and he felt all his muscles tense up for violence. "Really?"

"Um, I didn't get the impression that it meant anything on her side, Drake," the girl corrected quickly. "Maybe just Order business or something."

He said nothing, worked on controlling his natural impulses to run right out the front door and find Hermione. Trust wasn't something easily given by him, either, and he didn't trust Nott an inch where his wife was concerned. Hermione might not purposefully betray him, but he was sure that Ted had no compulsions whatsoever about forcing his wishes upon his rival's witch, especially one he felt he had special rights to because of a past relationship.

In fact, the more he thought on it, the more persistent the demand came for him to find his wife. It was illogical, but undeniably compelling.

At the stairs, he went up instead of down. "I'll meet you two later," he stated without explanation, and headed for his room to get his woolen robes and cloak. Donning them hurriedly, he rushed back down the two flights to the first floor, and made for the front door without pause, that buzzing drive from a few minutes earlier becoming insisitently urgent the closer to the cottage's exit he moved.

"If you go out without someone with the Order's Mark," Lupin called to him in passing, obviously spying his intentions to make for the outside fast. "You won't be able to see the house to come back."

Draco paused in gripping the handle, considering his options. That weird twisting in his guts and the way his chest caved with pressure propelled him onward though. Something felt… wrong. Without reply, he threw open the door and ran, feeling the magic of the wards tingle his bones as he passed through them. With no thought to direction, he let his feet guide him on, instinctively feeling with every stride that he was heading towards her, not away. It must be the Vow, pulling him to protect her...

...which meant she was in danger.

The press to reach her side quickly increased. His progress was impeded by the give of the sifting ground under his feet, however, and he moved at only half his normal speed, his boots struggling over the uneven surface of the dunes. _Fucking sand!_, he snarled internally, angling himself towards the more solid shoreline, where the water's influence had packed the granuals tighter.

As soon as he reached the line where ocean rose up on earth, he found two sets of footprints, one larger than the other, heading off into the distance around the curve of the land towards a rather high hill that had half-collapsed into the water. Forcing his burning legs to pump harder, his breath ragged and painful, Draco increased to top speed, hoping his heart didn't give out in his panicked flight. He didn't even have the air to spare to call for his wife, all of it being used to fuel his mad dash.

It seemed to take forever to round that cocksucking hill, but when he had, he lost what little air there was in his lungs, expelling it as if he'd been punched straight in the gut.

Nott was kissing his wife.

_That bastard was kissing_ _his__ wife!_

Forgetting the wand tucked safely inside his robes, forgetting in fact that he was a wizard with magical skill at his command, Draco lost out to the monstrous part of himself held in disciplined check deep inside, giving into his baser desires to rend and destroy. Furious, a red haze narrowing his vision, he grabbed Ted by the back of his cloak and pulled him with all his strength off Hermione, whipping him around at the same time. His fist connected with enough force to break his former friend's nose and jaw, sending the wizard flying onto his arse a meter away. "I'll kill you," he snarled, looming over the guy, his shadow in the morning light stretched across the man, hiding the sun from him completely. "You were warned. _SHE'S MINE!_" He screamed that last in between great gulps of air, losing himself in his animal rage.

He moved in with the intent to commit murder, when suddenly Hermione stepped in front of him. "Draco, stop! He didn't mean any harm." He made to step around her, but she put herself in his path again. "Stop, _please!_ He's conceded to us. He's letting me go. Please, don't hurt him just for saying one last goodbye. It was innocent!"

Blaise was suddenly there, grabbing him, holding him back as well. "If you kill him, you'll destroy us all," he warned firmly, shaking the sanity back into him with powerfully muscled arms. "Drake, look at me! You'll destroy _her_, too. Stop now!"

"Draco, please…" his wife sobbed, reaching out to him.

He flinched back, his ire ebbing away very slowly. "You swore not to betray me," he accused her, feeling his heart clench in desperate pain, feeling a part of him begin to die.

She shook her head, eyes widening. "I didn't betray you on purpose. I didn't know… I just looked up for a second, and there he was and he kissed me. I didn't see it coming. I promise you, that's the truth!"

"_SHUT UP!_" he screamed into her face, his ire returning full force. "You _lying whor..._"

Before he could launch further into the tirade, Blaise slapped a big, meaty hand over his mouth. "Don't say anything you'll regret," his friend cautioned him sternly. "You know she's naïve enough not to have guessed what Ted would do."

He was right. Draco _knew_ his best friend had bingo'd the whole problem in one easy sentence, but he wasn't very rational at that moment. He was an animal wounded and in pain, hurting everywhere, inside and out, and he needed an outlet for his frustration. If not the woman who had caused it, or the wizard who had instigated it, then another target would have to serve… and soon. Otherwise, he'd convince himself of the worst, and his vow not to let them be destoyed by their opposite personality flaws would be dashed to pieces. "Get me out of here," he grit between clenched teeth, fisting his hands behind his back. He turned his face away, refusing to look at his wife, needing not to see her for a while.

He heard her answering sob at his dismissal, felt her withdraw, taking steps away, knew he'd hurt her and in that moment, couldn't have cared less.

His best friend seemed to understand the situation in a heartbeat. "Daphne, take _Mrs. Malfoy_ and Nott back to the house," Zabini stated, stressing Hermione's title while looking over his shoulder at her with disappointment. "Their Order tattoos should let you all get back in. Look for the green sparks from my bedroom window in a few hours. When you see it, send someone to come out and escort us back in." He turned back to Draco. "We have some steam to blow off."

Shaking now as the adrenaline rushed through his system, the endorphins running their course and bringing payback, Draco weakly let Blaise lead him off down the beach, one hand holding tightly to his bicep, guiding him. He was pulled in close to his friend's body about twenty steps out, and that fishhook pull behind his navel and the dizziness that accompanied Apparition took him over, making him ill, and with a resounding thunder clap, they left the beach behind.

The sounds of the ocean were replaced with the rushing of wind through grass a few seconds later.

One he'd reoriented himself, Draco recognized the place as the barren area where the last Quidditch World Cup had been held, the summer before his Fourth Year. The ground had recovered from the trampling masses and the fires from so long ago; the area looked as if it had never known the touch of man. Mother Nature was amazing in its ability to heal even the worst wounds, he amusedly thought as his humanity ebbed back through him.

"Now, hit me with your best," Blaise offered, holding his wand up, knowing a fierce duel with very few rules to convolute the purity of the violence would be a safe way to vent some of Draco's frustrations. "Been a while since we've worked out like this. I think we could both use with the exercise anyway."

Reaching into his inner pocket, regaining his human perspective with a jarring sense of reclaiming himself, remembering who and what he really was once again – a wizard of power – Draco's smirk was absolutely feral. "Bring it, fucker," he accused his know-it-all friend. The guy always understood exactly what Draco needed, sometimes even before he knew himself.

"You wish," Blaise smirked back, playing with the double entendre in Draco's words, and then the fight was on.

**X~~~~~X**

Lying on his back, gasping for breath, feeling the pain in his right side stitch up and down his spine, Draco watched the grayish-black storm clouds churning above. They moved with a violence he recognized. A blizzard was coming, probably tonight, and about time, too. This year's weather had been unusual – too hot for snow, too cold for rain - and here they were at the end of December already, and it had only just sleeted last week. Real snow had been completely absent this season. It was probably caused by all of the fires that had been lit to burn the corpses, he contemplated; all of that sulfur and soot in the air tended to mess with the weather. This time, however, the signs were clear: there would be snow - a lot of it. Nature would not be denied its rights any longer. Man, using either technology or magic, could only stem the tide of her fury for a short while at best.

That meant that if he wanted to get a tree for _her_ for the holiday, as he'd planned, he had better get a move on and do it this afternoon.

Casting a Healing Charm on himself, he sat up, grunting at the stiff and sore muscles. He and Blaise had literally pounded on each other with magic for a good hour before his anger had abated. Then, they'd spent another hour refining battle techniques, so they could keep in practice. It had been brutal, but cleansing, serving to refocus him in a way nothing else could have. Yeah, Blaise always knew. "Fucker," he accused his friend again, this time with fondness, and then cast the Healing Charm on Blaise, too, who had lain at his side silently this whole time.

Zabini grinned wolfishly. "Keep it up and you'll find out how much of a fucker I really can be."

Draco shook his head and chuckled. "Right." He held his hand out. "Come on. We're going Christmas tree hunting."

Taking the proffered hand, Blaise looked at him with skepticism. "Seriously?"

Once they'd regained their feet and brushed off their robes, Draco raised his wand. "Yep. Engendering good will, remember?"

Zabini threw him a look of appreciative astonishment. "You're a sneaky, cheeky bastard."

"Takes one to know one," he joked back with a waggle of eyebrows. "So, where do you think we ought to look for the perfect Yule tree?"

Blaise considered it. "Ever been to Canada?"

Draco shook his head. "You?"

"Yep. Whistler, north of Vancouver," the guy confirmed with a brilliantly white grin. "Skiing with my folks, Christmas break Third Year. They've got loads of nice tree farms there. We can cut our own."

Draco put his hand on Blaise's shoulder and held on. "All right then. Let's go shopping. I want to be back before dinner, so I can make my wife apologize to me properly tonight."

"You know, there should be a sound rule for sex in that house," Blaise snickered, raising his wand. "No going over ninety decibels. Even _with _the sound spells you put up over your door, your wife's quite the screamer. Double up or something next time, will you?"

They were both laughing as they popped away, and Draco prayed they didn't splinch as a result. That would make fucking his wife later quite difficult.

**X~~~~~X**

Daphne was as loyal as a hound dog; she'd waited by the window in Blaise's room for over four hours until Draco and her lover returned to the cottage. Minutes after Blaise sent green sparks firing from the tip of his wand to signal they needed help to get in, Hermione popped out from behind the wards. Between one second and the next, she simply appeared, as if stepping right out of thin air. She was the one who was surprised, however, by the sight of the eight-foot tall, Grand Fir tree that her husband and Zabini held up between them.

She slowly made her way up to them, tentatively stepping to Draco's side. "I'd forgotten it was Christmas," she admitted, reaching out a hand to run the fresh, sharp needles of one branch through her fingers. "It's beautiful." Shyly, she looked up at him, and it was then that he realized how very pale and scared she appeared. "Thank you."

Hermione's gratitude was obviously sincere, but Draco was still smarting by this morning's events on the beach. Still, he knew he would take Blaise's wise counsel and forgive her, for the alternative - weeks or months of a resumed, awkward strain between them - was something he didn't relish the thought of enduring. The teenaged Draco might have cut off his nose to spite his own face in this instance and held the grudge, but the older, more seasoned Draco found the idea of cold, lonely showers and forced sexual encounters _utterly_ distasteful.

He and his best friend had talked about today's situation in depth after their fight had ended, as they'd lain in the grass at each other's side. Draco had spilled his guts about everything that had happened between him and Hermione over the past several days. His friend had listened intently, and when Draco was done emotionally vomiting all over him, the guy pointed out again how unsophisticated his wife really was when it came to the game of love. Zabini didn't believe, from his observations, and from what Draco had told him, that admitting she was in love was something Hermione would have done under false pretenses, either. He advised Draco to forgive the witch, but to caution her never to be alone with Nott again, for their former Housemate was clearly obsessed with his ex-, regardless of whether he'd agreed to let her go or not.

"Love makes people do the stupidest shite," Blaise had disdainfully conceded with a deep sigh. Draco thought that sentiment adequately summed up his relationship with Hermione as well. After all, he'd taken a life-long Vow with a woman he hadn't seen in years, tying his heart and soul to her, and praying that someday she'd love him back just as much. That was probably the craziest move any Malfoy had ever attempted in the history of his family's lineage, and if that didn't prove he loved her, he wasn't sure what would.

Reaching for his wife now, Draco wrapped his arm about her waist and drew her into him, bringing his nose down to hers. "Thank me later," he steamily charged her, pressing a needy, passionate kiss to her lips. "I want a lot of thanking tonight, wife," he growled softly as he gently bit her lower lip. "_A lot._"

She agreed without debate, relief evident in her features, and her fingers spread across one cold cheek to rub tenderly. "Okay."

Blaise's face appeared around the tree, as he struggled to hold it balanced upright in the sand as Draco let it go entirely to wrap both arms about his witch. "Um, help us get this monstrosity inside, yeah? My arms are getting tired."

**X~~~~~X**

The entire house came down to join in the festivities as soon as word was announced up the stairs eagerly by Alicia that there was a Christmas tree to be trimmed.

As feet stomped down the halls and stairs excitedly, Zabini emptied out the Bag of Holding he always carried on his person, pulling out the stolen ornaments he'd procured half a world away, in a land where Voldemort was just a name, and his reach hadn't been felt yet. He also extracted bottles of rum and cartons of still-chilled eggnog (they'd stopped in a Muggle store under a Disillusionment Charm and simply taken what they wanted, tossing it into the Bag). The Weasley twins erupted into cheers at the sight of the alcohol, and quickly took the beverages to the kitchen to warm up some hottie totties for everyone. Dobby and Moppy took the rest of the food supplies – including the six giant, frozen turkeys, eight frozen hams, two slabs of bacon, as well as all of the accompanying sides for Christmas and New Year's dinner - and followed right behind the ginger-haired men to put them away and prepare the night's meal.

As the tree was set up in the front corner of the room, near the large hearth, the decorations were separated into piles, with Tori leading the charge. "Wow… colorful!" she beamed, holding up a strand of tinsel garland. "What is it?"

Hermione jumped right in. "A Muggle ornament called garland. You string it around and around the tree a little loosely from top to bottom, making it loop between branches."

Tori squealed. "I wanna do that! Oh, let me, please!"

Draco stood back against the far wall and watched as the decorations were "assigned" to be placed on the tree by his wife. Even Lupin was tasked to participate by being the one to put the star on the top. It was amusing to watch… and a little warming, honestly.

"Clever, godson," Snape murmured taking up the spot next to him, obviously not comfortable with participating in such traditions. "You and Mr. Zabini have outdone yourself this time."

He shrugged. "It's Christmas, godfather. Good will to all and peace on earth, right?" He looked out of the corner of his eye at the dark robed, dark featured man. "Kind of oxymoronic, but it's what we're all fighting for here, isn't it?"

Severus' sable eyes widened and looked at him with some measure of respect. "Indeed." He smirked at him, putting a hand on his shoulder for a moment, and then withdrew, finding a corner chair and sat to watch the proceedings from the distance, as was his way.

Blaise immediately took up the vacant spot. "Not bad."

Actually, Draco thought the tree looked terribly gauche covered as it was now with Muggle plastic and aluminum trappings, not half as beautiful as a magicked tree with fairy lights and pixie dust glass balls, but it _was_ nicer too look at than a boring, empty corner. "Yes, I suppose."

They stood silently after that, shoulder-to-shoulder as always, watching the proceedings unfold before them.

The energized Order members burst into laughter or animated discussion as they finished up the decorating. Someone had magicked a phonograph into life, and it played an old Christmas album. The merry sounds of a Medieval strumming lute, a harp, a dulcimer, and two recorders played a rousing tune set the mood. The smell of the evening's meal - roasting pork, sauté onions and potatoes, and steaming sprouts - wafted through the house, making Draco's stomach rumble. He hadn't eaten a bite all day, he realized for the first time.

The Weasley men came in with trays of prepared drinks, and offered one of their mixes to each person. When a glass was in every hand, they turned to Lupin and Hermione, who raised theirs in toast.

"To hope," Lupin offered.

"To having each other," Hermione added, looking at her husband boldly across the room.

Draco nodded to her and sipped from his glass as everyone rowdily agreed and downed their beverages. He kept his eyes locked on his wife, and she on him, until her attention was called away by Lupin leaning in her ear to ask her something. She nodded and replied back. He couldn't read lips, so had no idea what the conversation was about, but clearly it distracted her enough to follow their former teacher into the kitchen.

"To having each other," Blaise tipped his glass against his with a loud clink and then tossed back his drink and sauntered off without another word to find Daphne.

"Yeah," Draco murmured under his breath as he watched his best friend taking up a spot next to the blonde witch and insert himself into her discussion with Angelina Johnson. "Thanks mate, for everything."

**X~~~~~X**

Despite how tired he was physically and mentally, Draco wasted no time after dinner in grabbing a hold of his wife's hand and dragging her up the stairs, a hastily thrown 'Good Night,' over their shoulders the only allowance to excuse their abrupt exit.

As soon as the door to their bedroom shut behind them, Draco pressed his wand to Hermione's tummy to cast the Contraceptive Charm (he didn't bother to cast the Silencing Charm on the room, wanting the world to hear what they were about to do so there would never be any doubt as to her feelings for him again), and then tossed his wooden rod onto the dresser and began hastily stripping off their clothes. When he and his wife were both completely naked, he stalked her, angling her backwards steps towards the bed, staring her in the eyes every centimeter of the way. "You're _my_ wife," he growled in righteous hurt and anger, needing to clearly reassert their relationship parameters again, so there would be no misunderstandings ever again. "Hermione _Malfoy_. Say it. Say you're mine."

Hermione didn't hesitate. "I'm Hermione Malfoy. I'm your wife, Draco. _Yours._"

Much as he had that first night they'd been in this room together, he unbalanced her and dumped her onto the bed on her arse, then pushed her down until she lay flat on her back. Looming over her, he kissed her with selfish need, punishing intent, and abiding love all wrapped up into one jumble of desperate feeling. "Whose lips are these again?" he demanded as he pulled away, feeling the ache in his chest return with a vengeance.

His beautiful witch quickly swiped the pink flesh of her bottom lip with her tongue. "They're yours."

He bent his mouth to her throat and sucked rather possessively over her pulse, leaving behind a bruising love bite. Hermione gasped at the pleasure-pain, and he lathed it with his tongue as soon as he'd finished to soothe the slight sting. "Whose neck is this?" he hotly murmured the query into her ear.

"Yours," she sighed in pleasure against his temple, letting her eager hands roam up his arms to his shoulders.

His mouth wandered down her throat to her collarbone, over the soft round globe of her mounds to the tip of her left breast. He bit her rosy, taut nipple, tugging up with just the right amount of pressure to make her cry out in mounting hunger. "Whose breasts am I teasing right now?" he challenged, lapping at the swollen bud, flicking it mercilessly.

Her thighs inched up his outer legs, rubbing his crisp, golden hairs with her freshly shaved, soft skin. "They belong to you, Draco," she reaffirmed, arching her spine so he'd take the tightened bead back into the cavern of his mouth, but he side-stepped her intent, showing the other nipple equal attention before roaming down her belly, lapping into her small indent in the middle, then over her waist to her hip.

"Who does all of this golden perfection belong to, wife?" he meaningfully inquired, nibbling her flesh as he traveled lower down one thigh. Hermione strained her pelvis towards his roaming mouth as she rasped out the correct response once more, but he skimmed past where she wanted him to explore and jumped to the other leg, traveling in a reverse path up the opposite site.

Tugging her arms from their grip on his shoulders, he leapt across the space to begin sucking on the bend in her elbow, letting his tongue wiggle a path down to her wrist, gently sucking and biting on it. He drew every finger into his mouth, and lapped into the middle of her palm to taste the salty, perspiring skin in the center. "Who has the _only_ right to kiss these hands like this?" he asked, watching her intently through half-lids as he slid her index finger in and out of his mouth with wet pressure.

"You," she answered automatically, her voice a rasp of air as she sharply exhaled, her whole body squirming under his expert handling. Not to be left out, he repeated the performance with her other hand and arm, asking her to repeat whether she was sure or not about her previous answer. She reiterated that she was positive.

He let her go only to delve his fingers between the 'vee' of her thighs, his own throbbing need pulling at him to find its completion within her soon. He teased her moist, pearly clit with light tickling, parting the folds of her soft skin as he leisurely moved up and down, stroking her until she was awash with desire, her moans irresponsibly loud in the quiet room. "Who is the _only_ man you will _ever_ give this pussy to again - from now until the end of your life?"

Her knees came up, fell apart wide, giving him complete, unfettered access. "Only you, Draco," she cried out and he rewarded her by inserting two fingers into her rather roughly, causing her to dig her fingernails into his biceps. "Yes! Only you!"

He worked her up for a bit, building her desire, waiting until she was literally dripping wet before pulling away, and wiggled one glistening finger down until it pierced her tiny hole directly underneath, slowly entering her tightly-ringed canal with deliberate care. "Who are you giving this ass to tonight?" he asked, deceptively calm, trying to control the pounding of his heart in his throat. They hadn't done this yet, and quite truthfully, he wasn't sure she was into such a thing. The look on her face said she'd never done it either, and from the incredible constricting of his finger, he was sure he'd be the first here, too. He'd own all her firsts, it seemed.

Swallowing back nervousness, she held his gaze. "To you, if you want it," she offered freely.

Such trust…

He nodded, giving her no quarter here either, determined to own every bit of her in every way imaginable. "_I __want it_," he assured her blatantly of his intent. Removing his finger from its naughty burrowing, however, he leaned over her once more, and slid his hard cock down the center of her wet lips. "But first, I'm going to fuck _this_," he inserted himself into her sweltering, tight cunt until his crown was buried in her eager flesh. "I'm going to fuck it hard. I'm going to own it like I should have all along." He shoved and worked through her convulsing, soused layers of tissues until he was eventually buried to the balls in her, then stopped, held onto her hips, lifting them off the bed to his standing height. "You're mine, Hermione," he reiterated, cupping her sweet, plump arse and sealing them firmly together. "Every inch of you. You always have been."

"And you've always been mine," she dared back, her dark cinnamon eyes glittering in the dim light of their bedside lamp. Her lips parted as she swiped across them again, and her fingernails scraped across their coverlet as she grabbed on tight, anticipating the ride ahead.

Sliding his hips back until just the tip of him was still inside her, then slowly sinking back in, Draco established a languid rhythm that was guaranteed to drive them both wild within a minute or two. "Yes, beautiful, I've been yours since that first kiss," he acknowledged easily, not flinching from her direct gaze. "You own me, too. Always have."

He took his wife in a variety of positions and in every opening of her body that night, claiming her completely, joining them body, heart and soul. There were whispered apologies in between thrusting, and reiterations of love made in loud cries as they rode each other hard, and so much warmth from her shining aura combining with his that as they came together, they were dripping with sweat, sliding in it, both practically faint from the heat. When they were too exhausted to go on, they simply collapsed onto each other and fell asleep in a tangle of limbs, lips pressed together, hands entwined.

It was only at the last possible moment, as darkness crowded in on all sides that Draco realized that Nott had been nowhere to be seen downstairs during the afternoon and night's festivities or dinner. Before he could give the matter more thought, however, warm sleep pulled him down into comfortable rest once again.

* * *

_**TO BE CONTINUED…**_

* * *

**AUTHOR'S EXTENDED NOTES:**

**Sitting tailor fashion: ****Tailors used to sit on the floor and sew with their legs crossed similar to what in slang is referred to as "Indian style."**


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